Zuckerberg becomes the sixth-richest person on Earth

SAN FRANCISCO — Mark Zuckerberg became the sixth-richest person on Earth yesterday (Jan 28).

The Facebook founder saw his fortune rise US$6 billion (S$8.56 billion) in trading yesterday after the world’s biggest social network delivered another quarter of record revenue. That gives the 31-year-old a net worth of US$47.5 billion, enough to surpass the US$45.9 billion holdings of brothers Charles and David Koch, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Facebook reported on Wednesday that fourth-quarter sales were up 52 per cent to US$5.84 billion and net income had more than doubled to US$1.56 billion from a year earlier. More than 1.59 billion users are now logging on every month, according to the company.

Yesterday’s surge turned a year-to-date decline of more than US$4 billion for Zuckerberg into a US$1.7 billion gain for the year and pushed him above the Kochs, whose industrial holdings have been hit by lower oil prices.

The five billionaires that remain above the tech entrepreneur in the ranking — Bill Gates, Amancio Ortega, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos and Carlos Slim — have lost a combined US$19 billion so far this month as global equities slump amid dimming investor expectations of global growth. Bezos, last year’s top-performing billionaire, was down US$3.9 billion at the close of trading yesterday, and slipped as much as $8 billion more in extended trading after Amazon.com reported fourth-quarter earnings that missed estimates.

Billionaire             Net Worth         Change YTD

Bill Gates            US$78 billion     -US$5.8 billion

Amancio Ortega   US$69.7 billion  -US$3.2 billion

Warrant Buffett    US$59.4 billion   -US$2.9 billion

Jeff Bezos          US$55.8 billion   -US$3.9 billion

Carlos Slim         US$48.6 billion   -US$3.6 billion

Mark Zuckerberg US$47.5 billion   +US$1.7 billion

Zuckerberg is now one of only seven billionaires among the 100 richest people on Earth to see an increase this year, according to the Bloomberg index, a daily ranking of the world’s 400 richest people. The billionaires have a combined net worth of US$3.7 trillion, a 14 per cent decline from their peak of US$4.3 trillion on May 18, 2015.

The index’s daily ranking updates every day at 5pm in New York and does not reflect intraday changes. BLOOMBERG