Since Facebook became Meta in 2021, Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth has hit $201 billion, making him the fourth richest person in the world.
Following the rebranding of Facebook to Meta in October 2021 and the company’s growth into metaverse hardware and artificial intelligence, tech entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg has become the fourth wealthiest billionaire in the world, with a net worth of $201 billion.
Meta is trading at nearly $567 per share at the time of this writing, a more than six-fold increase from the stock’s low point in November 2022, which was approximately $88 per share.
Meta’s stock saw a precipitous decline in the year that followed the rebranding, going from trading in the $300 area to reaching its lowest point in November 2022. This decline was a reflection of investor attitude over the company’s transition to augmented reality experiences and the development of artificial intelligence at the time.
Apple, Google, Nvidia, and Microsoft are among the corporations that have begun creating metaverse hardware since that time. These companies are among the world’s top ten most valuable. As of September 2024, the tech billionaire’s net worth positions him behind Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and Bernard Arnault, a French businessman.
During a Meta Connect event that took place in California on September 25th, Zuckerberg presented the Orion augmented reality glasses that Meta has developed. Miniature projectors in the innovative eyewear generate a heads-up display (HUD) over items in the physical world.
During the same ceremony, the founder of Meta introduced the younger and more affordable Quest 3S virtual reality headset, which would eventually replace the Quest 3 128 GB headset that was previously available. Although Meta’s stock price has skyrocketed since the rebranding in 2021, the corporation decided to cut its budget for the metaverse by twenty percent in July 2024.
Additionally, the company instructed its metaverse division, Reality Labs, to lower department spending by twenty percent by the year 2026.Since 2019, Reality Labs has incurred losses of sixty billion dollars, and by the second quarter of 2024, the company has reported losses.
One possibility is that the division has allegedly shifted its focus to applications involving artificial intelligence systems. In the past, Zuckerberg stated that Meta intends to expand its artificial intelligence (AI) business by concentrating its efforts more narrowly and increasing the amount of resources invested in AI research.
The billionaire provided an explanation on an earnings call on July 31. “We’ve released the first frontier-level open-source AI model, and we continue to see good traction with our Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses,” he said.
