Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has joined the ¡®Centibillionaire Club' that already has the likes of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. This means that Zuckerberg¡¯s personal wealth has now crossed the $100 billion mark.
The jump in Zuckerberg¡¯s riches comes after Facebook¡¯s stock rose by more than 6 percent on Thursday, marking an overall increase of almost 30 percent this year. Zuckerberg holds a 13 percent stake in the social networking company.
The big jump in the price of Facebook stock comes after its image and video sharing platform Instagram introduced ¡®Reels¡¯, a feature that mimics the much disputed TikTok. With TikTok being pointed out for security concerns and being banned in several countries, its follower base is expected to shift to Instagram.
Investors realise this and hence, a simple new ¡®limited-time¡¯ video format has helped the Instagram app soar to new heights. Reels allows Instagram users to record and edit 15-second multi-clip videos with audio, effects and other creative add-ons.
Instagram has been testing the feature since long, having released it in Brazil last year. With a slow rollout to other countries, the Reels feature hit the Indian market right when the Indian government banned TikTok and other Chinese apps from the country following a war-like scenario with China.
TikTok now faces a similar fate in the US, where President Donald Trump has issued an executive order prohibiting the China-based company from doing business with US firms post 45 days. The order prohibits anyone in the US from doing transactions with TikTok¡¯s Chinese parent, ByteDance.
TikTok has now threatened to take legal action against the order by the POTUS. It said that it was "shocked" by the executive order, and that the order, "was issued without any due process".?
With the new gains in personal wealth, Zuckerberg has joined Bezos and Gates in the exclusive 'Centibillionaire Club'. As per a report by Bloomberg, the 36-year-old's personal wealth has increased by about $22bn this year. In comparison, Bezos gained more than $75bn.
Zuckerberg, however, plans to donate 99 percent of his Facebook shares over his lifetime. The donations will be made? through the charitable foundation set up by him and his wife Priscilla Chan.