Mark Zuckerberg's net worth ranks fourth in the world, and Meta's market value exceeds 1.4 trillion US dollars

Tech entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg, now the world's fourth-richest billionaire with a net worth of $201 billion, rebranded Facebook to Meta in October 2021 and expanded into Metaverse hardware and AI. At the time of writing, tech giant Meta is currently trading at around $567 per share, up more than six times from the stock's November 2022 low of around $88 per share. Meta's current market cap is over $1.4 trillion, making it one of the world's most valuable companies. In the year following the name change, Meta's stock price fell sharply from a trading price of $300 to its November 2022 low, reflecting investor unease at the time about the company's shift into augmented reality experiences and AI development. Since then, half of the world's 10 most valuable companies have begun developing Metaverse hardware, including Apple, Google, Nvidia, and Microsoft. According to Bloomberg, Zuckerberg's net worth is second only to Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and French businessman Bernard Arnault as of September 2024. Zuckerberg has previously said that Meta will narrow the scope of the company's business and increase capital investment in artificial intelligence research to expand its business in this field. He explained in a July 31 earnings call: "We have released the first cutting-edge open source artificial intelligence model, and our Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses continue to be sought after." (Cointelegraph)