How Much Is Mark Zuckerberg Worth?
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Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a net worth of $97.2 billion as of Feb. 4, according to Forbes. See how he became one of the world’s richest billionaires.
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Last updated: Feb. 4, 2021
Mark Zuckerberg's Net Worth: $97.2 Billion
Forbes named Mark Zuckerberg the richest U.S. entrepreneur under age 40 in 2017. At that time, Zuckerberg’s net worth was $71 billion — $57.4 billion more than the runner-up, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. Zuckerberg’s net worth has since jumped to $97.2 billion.
Zuckerberg holds the titles of co-founder, chairman and CEO of Facebook. Facebook boasts one of the largest initial public offerings in U.S. history. The company’s shares were priced at $38 each, valuing Facebook at $104 billion. Zuckerberg owned more than 503 million shares and options when the company went public, which boosted his share of the company to $16.9 billion, Forbes reported.
In 2016, Zuckerberg began to sell some of his Facebook stock.
Facebook's History and Worth
In April 2018, Facebook was valued at more than $479 billion. As of early 2021, its valuation is around $775 billion. It might be worth noting that Facebook’s valuation could someday reach as high as $1 trillion, as CNNMoney reported in February 2018.
Founded in 2004, the social platform was originally known as thefacebook.com and was intended as a social directory for Harvard students. More than half of Harvard’s undergraduates signed up with thefacebook.com within its first month, according to The Guardian. By the end of 2005, the social network had expanded nationwide.
Facebook’s headquarters are in Menlo Park, California, about 30 miles south of San Francisco. Facebook had nearly 45,000 employees as of 2019, according to Statista. The social media site boasts a staggering 2.7 billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2020, according to Statista.
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How Facebook Makes Money
Most people enjoy Facebook for free, which has led some to wonder how Facebook makes money. Its primary source of income is through Facebook ads. Mobile ads are particularly lucrative; revenue from this category makes up 92% of total revenue as of 2018, according to Statista.
Under Zuckerberg’s leadership, Facebook has grown into much more than a social media website. The company also owns Messenger, a chat app with 1.3 billion monthly users as of September 2017, per Statista. Additionally, Facebook owns messenger app WhatsApp — which has 1.5 billion active users as of 2019, according to Statista — and technology company Oculus, which makes the virtual reality headset Oculus Rift.
In April 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion. As of June 2018, the app has around 1 billion monthly active users. Zuckerberg tried to buy photo- and video-sharing app Snapchat for $3 billion in 2013 but was turned down, according to The Wall Street Journal. Since then, several Snapchat-like features have been rolled out on Instagram.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Salary: $1
In 2012, Mark Zuckerberg reportedly earned about $770,000 from his Facebook salary and bonuses, according to Forbes. The following year, he slashed his annual salary to $1. Making such a move signified that Zuckerberg’s financial standing is dependent on Facebook’s success.
Although the billionaire entrepreneur isn’t earning a salary for his day job, Facebook pays for his expenses, including security and chartered flights for himself and his guests. In 2018, Zuckerberg’s personal security costs were $9.96 million and his private aircraft costs were $2.6 million, according to the company’s SEC filing.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Philanthropy
Mark Zuckerberg possesses more wealth than most people will ever see. Rather than keep his money to himself, however, he plans to give much of it away.
In 2010, Zuckerberg signed the Giving Pledge. The brainchild of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the Giving Pledge calls for wealthy people to give most of their money to charitable causes.
In November 2015, Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, had their first child, Max. Zuckerberg reiterated his philanthropic intentions in a letter to his daughter. In the letter, the couple introduced the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which focuses on the causes of personalized learning, curing disease and connecting people.
In August 2017, the couple announced that they had welcomed their second daughter, August.
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Gabrielle Olya and Sean Dennison contributed to the reporting for this article.
This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: How Much Is Mark Zuckerberg Worth?
