Facebook Co-founder Becomes Singapore's Richest Person Thanks To 140% Surge In Meta Shares

41-year-old Eduardo Saverin, who co-founded Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) along with Mark Zuckerberg and three others, has become Singapore¡¯s richest person. He has added $6.4 billion to his now net worth of $16 billion this year, thanks to Meta shares surging this year.

Brazilian billionaire Saverin, who also co-owns venture capital firm B Capital Group with assets of $6.3 billion under management, displaced Li Xiting, chairman of Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics, a supplier of medical devices, as Singapore¡¯s richest, as per Forbes report. In 2009, Saverin moved to Singapore, giving up his U.S. citizenship two years later.

Meta Shares Surge This Year

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After a bloodbath in 2022, Meta shares have been enjoying a surge this year. CEO Zuckerberg¡¯s Meta¡¯s shares have surged nearly 140% this year to date. Meta is among many other tech giants that are enjoying a stock surge this year amid the AI boom. Click here to know more.

Life Before & After Facebook

forbes

Now Singapore¡¯s richest person, Saverin is the son of Brazilian parents who relocated to Miami. He was born in S?o Paulo but grew up affluent in south Florida, attending boarding school there before heading to Harvard, where he made his fateful connection to Zuckerberg while a junior studying economics. After his involvement with Facebook, Saverin dabbled at several startup projects before moving to Singapore for what was supposed to be a short stay to help a friend launch a business.

As per Forbes, he never left Singapore, he says now, because he fell in love with his wife Elaine, a Singapore local ¡ª whom he¡¯d known briefly in his college days when she attended Tufts University ¡ªand with the city itself. ¡°Being a technology guy, it¡¯s an exciting place. It¡¯s a five-hour plane ride from a large part of the world¡¯s population.¡± His decision to renounce U.S. citizenship the year before the Facebook IPO, he says, had more to do with setting up roots in Singapore than paying a lower tax rate on his wealth. ¡°It was nothing related to the news at the time. That is not true,¡± he says.

What About Facebook¡¯s Other Co-Founders?

Reuters

Nearly two decades ago, five young Harvard students started a little social experiment on campus called The Facebook. It¡¯s now a $769 billion tech giant, but only Mark Zuckerberg is still at work there.

1. Mark Zuckerberg

CEO of Facebook (Meta)

2. Dustin Moskovitz

Zuckerberg's former college roommate and currently co-founder and CEO of Asana, a work productivity software unicorn.

3. Eduardo Saverin

Cofounder of B Capital, a venture capital firm.

4. Chris Hughes

Worked as Facebook's first spokesperson before buying The New Republic magazine in 2012¡ªselling it four years later¡ªand writing a 2018 book on economic equality.

5. Andrew McCollum, 35

Designed Facebook¡¯s initial logo. Now CEO of TV streaming startup Philo, which raised $40 million in July 2018.

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