While much of social media was commenting Thursday on a fake "bearded Mark Zuckerberg" picture, the Facebook co-founder notched a more substantial achievement: displacing Elon Musk on Bloomberg's Billionaires Index. Zuckerberg, 39, is now third on that list, with a net worth of about $178 billion, while the 52-year-old X owner falls to fourth with $170 billion. Quartz reports Zuckerberg's worth grew by nearly $50 billion throughout 2024, while Musk's value has dropped by about $55 billion. Fortune notes that Zuckerberg's return to the top three this month is the first time he's been in that position since late 2020.
The magazine also discusses how this switch has happened, pointing to a "reversal of the wealth gap" between the two men. Meta stock has spiked nearly 50% this year due to hype around the company's artificial intelligence plans and solid quarterly earnings, while Tesla shares have dropped close to 40%, giving it the dubious honor of last place on the S&P 500. The latter company has been struggling with everything from layoffs and top-level resignations to tepid sales in Q1, notes Quartz.
Both Fortune and Business Insider report on the tension that existed between the two men previously, starting with the destruction in 2016 of a Facebook satellite by a SpaceX rocket (Musk also owns SpaceX) and increasing after Zuckerberg's Meta launched Threads, which competes with Musk's X platform. They've even bantered about a possible cage match between them. If it makes Musk feel any better, Forbes still lists him as No. 3 on its own billionaires list, ahead of Zuckerberg by just $5 billion or so. In the No. 2 spot on both billionaire indexes is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, while Bernard Arnault and his family come in first place. (More Elon Musk stories.)
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