Mark Zuckerberg is one of the wealthiest people alive. In fact, he makes more money per day than any other person on the planet. He finally made the Forbes Top 10 richest people list in 2016. In May he celebrated his 32nd birthday, and he had some 44 billion reasons to celebrate. That is right, his net worth is estimated at $44.6 billion. In 2015, he made his biggest gain, adding $11.2 billion to his fortune. All that helped him crack the top 10 list.
Zuckerberg richer than Gates?
Because Mark is young and rich, he has made more money per day of living than any other person on the planet. In May this year, CNBC calculated that Mark is making $4.4 million for every day of his life. That is much more than what Bill Gates makes per day of living.
For comparison’s sake, Gates is second on that list with $3.5 million per day. But because of his age, he is actually “poorer” than Zuckerberg in this calculation. Jeff Bezos from Amazon is third on the list, making $3.3 million per day of living. Warren Buffet, for example, the third richest person in the world, is way down with “just” $2.2 million per day of living. But the reason is simple, Buffet is 86 years old. Also on the list are Google’s co-owners Sergey Brin and Larry page with $2.3 million per day of living, Amancio Ortega (Zara) with $2.4 million, Carlos Slim with $1.9 million per day, Larry Ellison (Oracle) with $1.9 million per day and Larry Bloomberg with $1.6 million per day of living.
How Zuckerberg made his fortune?
Everything started in 2004, when a 20 year old student at Harvard launched “Thefacebook”, a social network he and his dorm mates used for fun. The site quickly gained popularity outside of their campus. Nowadays, Facebook has more than 2 billion users.
Facebook underwent several changes, but Mark also made some smart investments. In 2012, for example, he purchased Instagram, a photo sharing social network on the rise. Nowadays, Facebook and Instagram are two of the top 5 most popular social networks. In 2014, Facebook also purchased WhatsApp, an instant messaging service.
In 2012, he made the biggest step towards financial security, putting the social network on the stock market. In May 2012, Facebook entered the public stock market for the first time. At that time, the Facebook estimated stock fortune was $104 billion.
What is interesting is that Mark has a salary of just $1 per year, but he makes money from stocks. He owns one quarter of stocks shares in Facebook, which is how he earns his money. The amount of money he earns depends on the value of shares in the stock market. One day, for example, Zuckerberg made $3.4 billion. That was in July 2013, when the value sky rocketed.
In 2016, the values of shares on the stock market by Facebook nearly doubled, with the stocks rising for 52 points.
At the moment, his value in October 2016 is estimated at $55 billion, which is 10 billion rise between March and October.
Charity work
Like many other billionaires, Mark Zuckerberg donates a lot of money in charity. In September 2016, he and his wife Priscilla promised to spend more than $3 billion over the next decade. The money will be spend to prevent, cure, and manage diseases. Earlier this year, they also announced that they will give 99% of their Facebook shares in charity by the end of their lifetime.
So far, Zuckerberg has donated $1.6 billion in charity. His annual giving, according to Forbes is $126 million.
