Mark Zuckerberg Net Worth: Centibillionaire Status Achieved This Week

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 8, 2020
  • This week, the net worth of Mark Zuckerberg — who is known as the CEO and co-founder of Facebook — increased $5.3 billion. And he became the youngest centibillionaire in the world on Friday as his net worth crossed $100 billion.

This week, the net worth of Mark Zuckerberg — who is known as the CEO and co-founder of Facebook — increased $5.3 billion, according to a Forbes report. This means that Zuckerberg at 36-years-old became the youngest centibillionaire in the world on Friday as his net worth crossed $100 billion.

The jump in net worth comes after Facebook’s photo social network Instagram launched a feature called Reels. The user interface of Reels is identical to the TikTok video platform. Following the launch of Reels, the stock price of Facebook jumped over 10% on Thursday and Friday. But then the share price pulled back on Friday afternoon. It is estimated that Zuckerberg owns about 15% of Facebook and his net worth closed at about $98.6 billion on Friday.

What makes the timing of the Reels launch interesting is that Microsoft is circling TikTok for a major acquisition. TikTok is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance and the app has been criticized by President Donald Trump — who threatened to ban the app in the U.S. over national security reasons. There is speculation that President Trump is lashing out at TikTok due to some of its users tampering with the registration system associated with the Tulsa, Oklahoma rally in June — which saw a much lower turnout than the campaign managers expected. And on Thursday night, President Trump issued an executive order that prohibited Americans from doing business with ByteDance starting September 20. ByteDance is reportedly threatning to sue the U.S. government in response.

Some of the other centibillionaires include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ($189.8 billion), Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates ($113.6 billion), and LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault ($107.1 billion).

Zuckerberg launched Facebook while attending Harvard University in 2004. And Zuckerberg pledged to give away 99% of his Facebook shares during his lifetime through a philanthrophic organization he launched with his wife Priscilla Chan.