How did Mark Zuckerberg become $26B richer in 24 hours?

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is having a standout week as his net worth skyrockets to an all-time high of USD 271 billion, following a stellar earnings report from his company, Business Insider reported.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index on August 1, 2025, Zuckerberg’s wealth jumped by USD 26.8 billion in a single day, positioning him as the third-richest person globally, trailing only Tesla’s Elon Musk and Oracle founder Larry Ellison.

The surge followed Meta's report of second-quarter earnings that exceeded analysts’ expectations. Shares soared more than 12 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday, reaching a historic high of USD 780.

The company’s earnings call was largely dominated by discussion of Meta’s future in artificial intelligence. Zuckerberg outlined an ambitious vision of developing “personal superintelligence” for the masses, a goal he detailed in a letter published hours before the call. He emphasized Meta’s ongoing investment in AI talent, highlighting the newly formed Superintelligence Labs team.

“Small talent-dense teams are the optimal configuration for driving frontier research,” Zuckerberg said, referencing Meta’s strategy of hiring top-tier AI experts.

Zuckerberg also emphasized his belief in smart glasses as the future interface for AI, describing them as "the ideal form factor for AI" and warning that failing to adopt them could lead to a "significant cognitive disadvantage." Meta has already launched its Ray-Ban smart glasses and more recently introduced Oakley Meta eyewear. A prototype of its augmented reality Orion glasses was also showcased last fall.

When asked whether Meta would continue its open-source approach to AI development, Zuckerberg signaled cautious optimism but left room for change.

“We’re getting models that are so big that they’re just not practical for a lot of other people to use,” he said. “So we kind of wrestle with whether it’s productive or helpful to share that, or if that’s really just primarily helping competitors or something like that.”