21K layoffs later, Meta CEO’s worth up by $10 bn

NEW DELHI: Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth surged by $10.2 billion after the company posted strong quarterly results, leading to its shares rising by nearly 14 per cent, as the company announced two rounds of layoffs impacting 21,000 employees in recent months.

Zuckerberg now has a net worth of $87.3 billion and is the 12th richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Meta (formerly Facebook) posted revenue of $28.65 billion, an increase of 3 per cent year-over-year and beating Wall Street expectations in its March quarter.

At the close of trading on Thursday, Nasdaq-listed Meta jumped 13.93 per cent on better-than-expected results to end the day at $238.56 -- its highest close in 15 months, reports The National.

The gain in Zuckerberg’s net worth was the third-largest single day spike in his career.

In 2022, he lost $71 billion (57 per cent) from his net worth as the stock market bear run eroded 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, Meta Reality Labs (AR-VR division) lost nearly $4 billion in the March quarter and in 2022, it lost $13.7 billion.

“Our vision for AR glasses involves an AI-centric operating system that we think will be the basis for the next generation of computing,” Zuckerberg told analysts on the earnings call.

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,” said Meta.