Mark Zuckerberg Just Became The Second Richest Person In The World For The First Time. Could He Go To #1?

This is a comeback I would not have predicted two years ago. But first, let's go back a little further.

At the lowest point of the COVID stock market scare, March 2020, when we weren't sure if humanity would even exist in a few months, Facebook's stock price dipped to $150 a share, down from $220 a few months earlier before anyone had heard of COVID. Then, as it turned out, humanity did continue to exist. Not only that, we spent a year stuck at home looking at Facebook, Instagram, and messaging on WhatsApp.

Therefore, on September 3, 2021, Facebook's stock price hit what was then an all-time high of $380 per share. At that level, Mark Zuckerberg's net worth topped $140 billion for the first time. One month later, Facebook announced it was going all in on the "metaverse." The company even rebranded as "Meta" to really convince the world that all of humanity would soon exist in a legless cartoon world. Then, as it turned out, humanity did NOT want to exist in a legless cartoon world. We also quickly came to realize that monkey jpegs were not, in fact, the future of currency and art. But that's a separate story.

When the COVID fog lifted, people looked around the room and realized that Facebook/Meta may have made a huge mistake by spending tens of billions of dollars building a legless cartoon world that no one asked for and no one was using. Wall Street noticed, and Meta's stock price proceeded to tumble from that high of $380 all the way down to $99 on October 28, 2022.

In terms of market cap, that was a drop from $1.1 trillion to a little under $250 billion in 13 months. With that drop, Mark's net dropped from $140 billion to a low of $37 billion. Even at the March 2020 COVID low point, Mark's net worth was still around $60 billion. You'd have to go back to June 2015 to find a point where Mark was worth $37 billion or less.

Back from the Dead

Social networks tend to come and go. Think Myspace, Friendster, Vine, Google+, Bebo, Tumblr, Twitter. You would not have been laughed out of the room in late 2022 if you predicted Facebook would continue marching to its death.

In what might be one of the most impressive comebacks in business history, Facebook did NOT march to its death. Whether by luck or strategic success, the company has spent the last two years riding a wave of business tailwinds driven primarily by AI hype (which I personally believe is a big fat bubble, but that's a separate story).

On Friday, Facebook's stock hit an all-time high of $596 a share. Its market cap is now $1.5 trillion. That makes it the sixth largest company in the world by market cap behind only:

1. Apple – $3.5 trillion
2. Microsoft – $3.1 trillion
3. NVIDIA – $3 trillion
4. Google – $2.1 trillion
5. Amazon – $2 trillion
6. Facebook – $1.5 trilliion

And with that soaring success, Mark Zuckerberg just became the second richest person in the world for the first time.

At Friday's closing price of $595 a share, Mark's net worth is $211 billion. He slightly edged out Jeff Bezos, who is currently worth $209 billion. The #1 richest person in the world is Elon Musk, who has enjoyed his own major resurgence in roughly the same time period. Elon ended Friday with a net worth of $263 billion. Elon started 2023 out with a net worth of "just" $130 billion. It climbed back up above $200 billion by mid-2023, only to collapse again down to $160 billion by April of this year. And then he marched right back up over the last five months, adding $103 billion to his net worth between late April and Friday's close.

Could Mark Zuckerberg Become the Richest Person in the World?

Sure. Anything is possible. Here's one scenario of how that would happen: Let's say Elon Musk's net worth stays around $260 billion. If Facebook's market cap increases to $1.9 trillion, which would require its stock price to hit $750 a share (up from the current $600), Mark's net worth would be a little over $260 billion. And in this scenario, he would be the richest person on the planet. Do you think that will happen?