Mark Zuckerberg passes Jeff Bezos to become world’s second-richest person

By Alex Perry | Bloomberg

Mark Zuckerberg became the world’s second-richest person for the first time Thursday, jumping ahead of Jeff Bezos as shares of Meta Platforms Inc. continue to climb.

Zuckerberg’s bet on the metaverse — which initially looked like a huge bust — has paid off in recent months, pushing his net worth to a high-water mark of $206.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That puts him $1.1 billion ahead of Amazon.com Inc.’s Bezos and almost $50 billion behind Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk.

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Meta shares have risen 23% since reporting better-than-expected sales in the second quarter and touting its push into the type of large language models that power AI chatbots. The stock closed Thursday at all-time high of $582.77.