What is Mark Zuckerberg's net worth? Here's how much the tech CEO earns

Kit Heren10 August 2020

Some of the richest people in the world are founders, investors or senior executives at tech companies.

The tech sector has long been a boom industry throughout the world, but especially in the US. American tech companies accounted for $2.1 trillion of the US economy last year, or around ten per cent of US GDP, according to industry trade body the Internet Association.

Facebook is one of the biggest and most successful of these businesses, and in its most recent financial results showed no signs of letting up despite the pandemic, with revenue and user growth soaring ahead of expectations.

But how much is founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg worth? And how much does he earn each year?

Mark Zuckerberg
REUTERS

Net worth

Mr Zuckerberg, 36, is the fourth-richest person in the world, according to the Forbes Billionaires list - behind only Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and luxury goods mogul Bernard Arnault and his family.

The Facebook founder has a fortune of $97 billion (about £74.3 billion), according to Forbes - although Bloomberg, which also tracks the wealth of the world's richest people, puts him above that at $100 billion (about £76.7 billion).

Much of Mr Zuckerberg's wealth is in the form of his 13 per cent stake in Facebook, which he took public in 2012 after founding eight years earlier.

Shares rose by 6.5 per cent on Thursday after Facebook launched a TikTok-esque app, Reels, on the same day that US President Donald Trump ordered TikTok to be blocked if its Chinese owner doesn't sell up to a US company within 45 days.

Mr Zuckerberg with his wife Priscilla Chan 
Getty Images for Breakthrough Pr

Facebook's share price has risen by nearly 30 per cent so far in 2020, adding $22 billion (nearly £17 billion) to Mr Zuckerberg's fortune.

After announcing strong second-quarter earnings last week, the company said it had benefited from the coronavirus pandemic, with hundreds of millions of people around the world ordered to stay at home.

Mr Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have pledged to give away 99 per cent of their stake in Facebook to their charity over the course of their lifetimes. They have also made several other major charitable donations.

Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a joint hearing of the Commerce and Judiciary Committees in 2018
AP

How much does he earn?

Mark Zuckerberg is Facebook's lowest earning employee, with an official yearly salary of just $1 since 2013. Before he had a wage of $500,000.

He told a Facebook Q&A session in 2015: "I've made enough money. At this point, I'm just focused on making sure I do the most possible good with what I have."

Perhaps surprisingly, this is not that unusual for tech CEOs: Former Alphabet (Google's parent company) boss Larry Page also had a salary of $1 before stepping down last year, while Twitter chief Mark Dorsey reportedly takes home a similarly low amount.

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