Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune surged by $4.6 billion Thursday after Meta Platforms Inc. reported strong second-quarter earnings, joining his billionaire peers at Alphabet Inc. in benefiting from a resurgence in advertising spending.
Shares of Menlo Park, California-based Meta, the parent company of Facebook, rose as much as 9% in New York before closing up 4.4%, the most since April.
Zuckerberg, Meta’s co-founder and chief executive officer, has seen his net worth increase $67.7 billion this year to $113.3 billion, the second-largest increase among those in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index behind only Elon Musk.
Zuckerberg, 39, who ranks 10th on the wealth index, derives most of his fortune from Meta stock, which has gained 159% this year. The social media firm on Wednesday reported strong results for the quarter ended June 30 and gave an optimistic outlook for the current period.
Zuckerberg wasn’t the only U.S. technology billionaire having a rosy week. Alphabet co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin each gained more than $5 billion in net worth Wednesday after the company reported second-quarter revenue that exceeded analysts’ expectations, boosted by advertising on the its flagship Google search business.
Meta’s recovery in advertising revenue is thanks to an investment in Reels, the short-form videos on Instagram and Facebook designed to mimic rival TikTok’s format. Meta’s Instagram also recently introduced Threads, a competitor to Twitter, that in its first few days soared to 100 million users.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.
