Billionaire and Meta Platforms chief Mark Zuckerberg had the best day of his life, at least as far as his wealth is concerned. Shares in Meta Platforms shot up more than 17 percent on Thursday.
That made the billionaire nearly $11 billion richer in a single day. This was after Facebook reported an increase in daily users, a key metric for advertisers, Bloomberg reports.
Facebook’s daily users reached 1.96 billion, the original analyst estimate was 1.95 billion. The stock rose 17.6 percent, the biggest one-day gain ever, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index daily ranking.
The 37-year-old billionaire moved up six places in the index of the world’s richest people, overtaking the likes of Jim and Rob Walton and Alice Walton. Zuckerberg is currently in 12th place.
Thursday’s positive news for Zuckerberg is in stark contrast to Meta’s fourth-quarter results last year, against which the stock plummeted in early February, shrinking the company’s market value by more than $200 billion. It was the biggest drop in the history of stock markets.
Meta is currently struggling with competitors such as TikTok. Meta also announced that it has been affected by the war in Ukraine. In fact, Facebook and Instagram were blocked in Russia last month.