Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune jumped by $12.5 billion on Thursday, the largest one-day increase in his wealth, after he vowed 2023 will be the “year of efficiency” for his social-media giant, Meta Platforms Inc.
The 38-year-old chief executive is rebounding from his worst year on record, with his wealth tumbling from a peak of $142 billion in September 2021. He had a number of daily ups and downs in 2022: he lost as much as $31 billion in a day last February, then gained $11 billion in April, only to lose $11 billion in October after another disappointing earnings report.
Zuckerberg now has a net worth of $69.8 billion, making him the world’s 13th-richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which began tracking his wealth in April 2012. He leapfrogged, among other billionaires, India’s Gautam Adani.
Investors cheered after Meta’s most recent financial results. In a call with investors Wednesday, Zuckerberg said the company’s November job cuts of 11,000, or 13% of the workforce, were “just the beginning” of his plans for streamlining. The company also notched a victory in the courts this week, defeating the Federal Trade Commission’s effort to block the firm’s buyout of a virtual reality startup.
“We’re working on flattening our org structure and removing some layers of middle management to make decisions faster, as well as deploying AI tools to help our engineers be more productive,” Zuckerberg said. “There’s going to be some more that we can do to improve our productivity, speed and cost structure.”
Meta is on the rebound after facing a decline in advertiser demand due to weakness in the broader economy as well as a change in privacy rules on Apple Inc.’s iPhone, which made it harder for Meta to offer targeted ads. Zuckerberg said the company is using AI to improve the way it recommends content, which could make the platform more appealing to users and advertisers. The firm faces slumping demand for digital ads, but the company pointed to industries like health and travel where companies are spending more.
Meta gained 23.3% on Thursday, joining a number of other tech-related companies that saw their shares soar. But after the close, Apple and Amazon.com Inc.released disappointing earnings, raising the risk that the sector’s rebound could be short-lived.
