Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Meta, saw a rise in his net worth by $10.2 billion as a result of the company’s outstanding quarterly results and recent announcements of two rounds of layoffs impacting 21,000 employees.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Zuckerberg is currently the 12th richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $87.3 billion.
In its March quarter, Meta (previously Facebook) reported sales of $28.65 billion, up 3% from the prior year and exceeding Wall Street expectations.
The Nasdaq-listed Meta soared 13.93% on better-than-expected results to conclude the day at $238.56, its best close in 15 months, per to The National.
The increase in Zuckerberg’s net worth was the third-largest single day increase in his career.
In 2022, he lost $71 billion (57%) of his net worth as the stock market’s bear run decimated the personal wealth of many of the world’s tech billionaires.
“We had a good quarter and our community continues to grow. Our AI work is driving good results across our apps and business. We’re also becoming more efficient so we can build better products faster and put ourselves in a stronger position to deliver our long term vision,” Zuckerberg said while declaring the March quarter results.
However, the AR-VR division of Meta Reality Labs lost nearly $4 billion in the March quarter and $13.7 billion in 2022.
On the earnings call, Zuckerberg stated that “our vision for AR glasses involves an AI-centric operating system that we think will be the foundation for the next generation of computing.”
Meta anticipates total revenue in the range of $29.5-32 billion in the second quarter of 2023.
Meta expects second quarter 2023 total revenue to be in the range of $29.5-32 billion.
“We anticipate our full-year 2023 total expenses will be in the range of $86-90 billion, updated from our prior outlook provided in March,” Meta stated.
This forecast includes $3-5 billion in restructuring expenditures for facility consolidation charges, as well as severance and other personnel costs.
