Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg added $11 billion to his net worth this year, TV anchor Pimm Fox said during a discussion on Bloomberg’s Taking Stock program, according to the Insider Monkey website.
The revelation about the Facebook co-founder and current top executive was made by Fox as he and colleagues Cory Johnson and Trish Regan were talking about the billionaire winners and losers this year, the report said.
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Though the net worth of the rich Facebook boss soared to about $35.7 billion according to the Bloomberg billionaires list, it was not enough to land him the title of the biggest billionaire winner of 2014, which belongs to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s Jack Ma who made about $25.1 billion as his company went public in September, according to the report.
Johnson noted how Zuckerberg has stuck to long-sighted deals which add value to his company. The CEO, he said, is using his company’s money to acquire business that makes Facebook more competitive, the report said.
“[WhatsApp is] possibly the fastest-growing messaging platform and the biggest one in the world. It’s really eviscerating what’s happening with the phone networks. He also continues to use the company’s capital to make the acquisitions that will keep things competitive [and] things at bay, ” he said.
Johnson gave as an example the $1 billion the company spent acquiring Instagram which seemed silly at the time the deal was announced. However, Johnson said that as a separate company, Wall Street is valuing Instagram at about $35 billion, Insider Monkey said.
The Bloomberg host said that while there is no penny pinching with Mark Zuckerberg, the capital the company spends appears to be going to good use, the report said.
Meanwhile, a report in the Standard Examiner said the richest people on Earth got richer in 2014, adding $92 billion to their collective fortune in the face of falling energy prices and geopolitical turmoil incited by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The net worth of the world’s 400 wealthiest billionaires on Dec. 29 stood at $4.1 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s wealthiest people.
The report said one year’s biggest gainers was Zuckerberg, the hoodie-wearing CEO of the world’s largest social-networking company, who gained $10.6 billion as the Menlo Park, California-based business rose to a record on Dec. 22.
This year Facebook made headway in mobile, a business that has flourished as mobile advertising increased and marketing initiatives expanded with applications and video. Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion has also been paying off. A Citigroup analyst said on Dec. 19 the photo- sharing app is worth $35 billion, the report said.
Zuckerberg’s company faced a challenge in Russia, where the blocking of a Facebook page promoting a Russian opposition rally highlighted the challenges the social network faces as Putin cracks down on the Internet amid a looming economic downturn.
