Mark Zuckerberg Ranks Third Richest Man In The World

Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has now risen to be world’s third richest man, overtaking Warren Buffett on Bloomberg’s list of the world’s richest people, as Facebook shares rose 2.4 percent.

The number 1 spot remained Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos while Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates followed in the second position.

The daily rankings of the world’s 500 richest people listed in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index showed the top 3 remained the same.

Zuckerberg is now worth $81.6 billion, nearly $400 million more than Buffett, chairman of the Berkshire Hathaway investment group, rankings show.

Zuckerberg’s California-based social network business has more than 2 billion active monthly users.

The company’s stock has reached a record high despite ongoing scrutiny over its Cambridge Analytica data breach that leaked personal information of up to 87 million people, MarketWatch reported.

Zuckerberg has pledged to give away 99 percent of his Facebook stock away in his lifetime, his Bloomberg profile shows. Further, Zuckerberg has given $3.58 billion in stock sales away this year alone to a charity initiative he set up with his wife, Priscilla Chan, in 2015.

Buffett has donated about 290 million of his shares in Berkshire Hathaway to charities, an equivalent of about $50 billion.