Only five people in the entire world are now richer than Mark Zuckerberg.
The Facebook founder and CEO (and America’s favorite dad) saw his net worth surge overnight Wednesday to around $47 billion on the strength of the social network’s latest quarterly results, pushing Zuckerberg up to number six on the list of the world’s richest people, according to data from Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
Zuckerberg overtook Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers known for pouring money into Republican coffers, and now sits behind a couple of his tech cohorts in the rankings, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Facebook stock surged by more than 10% on Thursday after the company shattered Wall Street’s sales and profit estimates for the all-important holiday quarter. The company’s sales hit $5.8 billion for the quarter, and nearly $18 billion for 2015 overall.
Facebook, like many tech companies, had seen its stock dragged down in recent weeks as investors fled high-growth, high-risk businesses in favor of safer bets amid a global market selloff. Now it, and Zuckerberg, are enjoying a nice rebound.
Zuckerberg announced last month with the birth of his first child that he and his wife plan to give 99% of his Facebook shares — then valued at $45 billion — to a new philanthropic initiative focused on advocacy and investments for the public good.
So the richer he gets, the more the ultimately will have to give away.
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Source: Mashable