Mark Zuckerberg joins the exclusive club with only two other members

But now there’s an even more illustrious camp: the $200 billion club. And only three of tech’s biggest leaders have made it to that summit: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and now Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

However, Zuckerberg not only entered the $200 billion club, he’s also the top earner on the list, amassing tens of billions in wealth this year.

Zuckerberg’s fortune grew by an incredible $72.2 billion this year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, bringing his total wealth to $200 billion. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had the second-highest increase in net worth this year, gaining $58 billion in wealth. Growth aside, Musk has the highest net worth with $265 billion to his name, with Bezos trailing behind at $216 billion.

That puts Zuckerberg ahead of other major tech executives, including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and former Microsoft CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

“I define our strategy as if we can learn faster than any other company, we will win,” Zuckerberg said during a recording of the film. interest podcast last week. “We’re going to build a better product than everybody else because we’re going to get it out there first or sooner. You learn faster.”

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While Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook 20 years ago, only receives a salary of $1, he makes up for it with “other compensation” and his massive stake in Meta. He is the largest shareholder in Facebook’s parent company, owning about 345.5 million shares, according to Meta’s April proxy statement. In addition, he took home $24.4 million in “other compensation” this year. Much of that other compensation goes to protecting Zuckerberg, as it does for other high-profile CEOs.

“We believe Mr. Zuckerberg’s role places him in a unique position: He is synonymous with Meta, and as a result, negative sentiment about our company is directly associated with and often transferred to Mr. Zuckerberg,” Meta wrote in the SEC filing.

Meta did not respond wealthhis request for comment on Zuckerberg’s net worth.

Zuckerberg’s Force for ‘Efficiency’

Meta, which owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp, has performed well this year. Since the start of 2024, Meta shares are up 60% and 85% year-to-date. It opened trading above $557 per share on Tuesday.

Zuckerberg credits the company’s focus on AI for Meta’s strong performance this year.

“Meta AI is on track to become the world’s most used AI assistant by the end of the year,” Zuckerberg said in a July earnings statement. Indeed, revenue rose 22% to $39.07 billion from $32 billion in Q2.

While AI has been a boon for the company, Zuckerberg’s “Year of Efficiency” at Meta has been a challenge for many of his other workers and for some of his biggest projects, including augmented reality. This cost-cutting initiative began in February 2023 and led to mass layoffs from the tech giant.

“This decision is part of our larger efforts to prioritize products that we believe will best serve the future needs of our consumer and business customers alike,” Meta said in a statement.