Mark Zuckerberg is richer than Elon Musk for the first time since 2020

For the first time since 2020, Mark Zuckerberg surpassed Elon Musk to become the third richest person in the world , according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The Facebook founder now has a net worth of $186.9 billion, $6.3 billion more than Musk. Musk's fortune has dropped $48.4 billion since the start of the year, while Zuckerberg's has added $58.9 billion thanks to Meta's stock price hitting new records.

Elon Musk held the title of richest person on the planet in November 2021, when his fortune peaked at $215 billion. But the once-hot electric car stock has been overtaken by digital technologies, especially artificial intelligence (AI).

Tesla shares have fallen more than 33% since the start of 2024, making it the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500. The company has been hit by slowing global demand for electric vehicles, growing competition in China and production problems in Germany.

Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Photo: Reuters — Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. *Photo: Reuters*

Recently, Reuters reported that Tesla has canceled plans to produce a low-cost electric car, which was expected to cost around $25,000 to compete with Chinese electric cars. The information was revealed after reporting a decline in sales in the first three months of the year, the first quarterly decline since the pandemic. Tesla's stock has therefore plummeted further. On the social network X, Musk claimed that Reuters was "lying".

Meta shares, on the other hand, have surged more than 52% this year, helped by strong quarterly earnings and investor excitement about the company’s AI initiatives. It’s also the fifth-best performing stock in the S&P 500.

Zuckerberg is looking to integrate AI technology into Meta’s core social media products and hardware devices. In the first quarter, he traveled to South Korea to meet with LG and Samsung executives to discuss chip supply and expanding the AI ecosystem.

Meta plans to deploy a new version of its chip designed specifically for better AI applications in data centers as early as this year. It also has a contract to buy about 350,000 H100 processors from manufacturer Nvidia.

On the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, LVMH luxury giant Chairman Bernard Arnault remains the richest person with a fortune of $223.4 billion. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is in second place with $207.3 billion.

Phien An ( according to Bloomberg, Reuters )

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