Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took home a salary of just $1 in 2023, the lowest among all Meta employees. However, he received about $24.4 million in other compensation, primarily covering security costs.

Details on the exact amount spent on his security were not revealed, but Meta increased its budget for his security to $14 million in 2023, up from $10 million in previous years. 

Zuckerberg’s security pre-tax allowance increased by 40% compared to 2018. This came after a year of cost-cutting for Meta, during which the company laid off around 11,000 employees.

Meta, at the time, stated that Zuckerberg could use the increased allowance for various safety-related needs, including “additional personnel, equipment, services, residential improvement”, according to the NY Post.  

A portion of Mark Zuckerberg’s $24.4 million compensation in 2023 covered costs related to his private jet, reported Fortune. 

The 39-year-old reportedly deliberately kept his salary at $1, as per his request, and did not want to be included in Meta’s Bonus Plan nor receive any equity awards. 

Zuckerberg’s wealth has increased by over $47 billion this year alone, despite receiving a nominal salary of $1 since 2013.

As per Forbes, he currently ranks as the fourth richest person globally, with a net worth of $155 billion, trailing behind Bernard Arnault, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos. 

Meta Profits Soar

Facebook owner Meta this week said that its quarterly profits soared last quarter. 

The company said that net profit in the January to March period rose to $12.4 billion with total revenue, mainly from selling ads, up an impressive 27 percent, at $36.5 billion.

“We estimate that more than 3.2 billion people use at least one of our apps each day and we’re seeing healthy growth in the US,” Zuckerberg told analysts on an investor call.

Meta said its global workforce now stood at 69,329, slightly more than last quarter, but down from a peak of more than 87,000 employees in 2022.

Mark Zuckerberg passed Elon Musk on Friday to become the third-richest person in the world, the first time since 2020 the arch-rival billionaires have held those positions.

Musk, who ranked first on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as recently as early March, fell to fourth after Reuters reported Tesla Inc. had canceled plans for a less-expensive car, sending shares lower. (Musk denied the report.) That followed news earlier in the week that Tesla’s vehicle deliveries fell in the three months through March, their first year-over-year decline since the early days of the Covid pandemic.

Musk’s wealth has shrunk by $48.4 billion this year, while Zuckerberg has added $58.9 billion to his fortune as Meta Platforms Inc. climbs to fresh highs, including a new record on Friday.

It’s the first time Zuckerberg has broken into the top three on Bloomberg’s ranking of the richest people since Nov. 16, 2020, when he was worth $105.6 billion and Musk’s fortune was $102.1 billion. Musk now has a net worth of $180.6 billion; Zuckerberg’s is $186.9 billion.

The reversal of the wealth gap between Musk and Zuckerberg, which was as big as $215 billion in November 2021, illustrates how once-hot electric vehicle stocks have been usurped by big tech, and particularly anything involving artificial intelligence.

Tesla shares have fallen 34% this year, making it the worst performer in the S&P 500 Index. It’s been battered by a global slowdown in EV demand, growing competition in China and production problems in Germany. Meta, meanwhile, has surged 49% thanks to strong quarterly earnings and excitement about the company’s AI initiatives. It’s the fifth-best performer on the S&P 500.

The two billionaires’ rivalry extends beyond their wealth: Musk and Zuckerberg have been engaged in an ongoing public spat that intensified when Meta launched Threads, a social-media platform that competes with Musk’s X. The two even traded barbs last year about a possible cage fight. Musk, 52, recently revived the idea on X, saying he would fight Zuckerberg, 39, “anywhere, anytime.”

Musk’s net worth could take a further hit after his $55 billion Tesla pay package was struck down by a Delaware judge. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index continues to use the options from that pay package, which are one of Musk’s largest assets, in its calculations of his wealth.

Bernard Arnault, the chairman of luxury giant LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, and Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos hold the first two spots on Bloomberg’s wealth ranking with fortunes of $223.4 billion and $207.3 billion, respectively.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Tokyo:

He may be the world’s fourth-richest person and visiting gourmet paradise Japan, but Mark Zuckerberg is eating McDonald’s, according to photos posted on Tuesday by the Meta chief.

“Japanese McDonald’s: 10/10. Give these guys a Michelin star,” the 39-year-old said on Facebook and Instagram, alongside photos of himself in sunglasses eating a burger and of his wife Priscilla Chan outside the golden arches.

Seen on Zuckerberg’s packed tray were popular Japanese menu items including a shrimp-patty burger, a teriyaki chicken burger, edamame bean salad and bite-sized churros — along with the more usual chicken nuggets and fries.

Zuckerberg was in Japan with his family for a trip mixing pleasure — including skiing and making Japanese swords — and business.

After reportedly meeting with Facebook developers in Tokyo on Monday and Tuesday, Zuckerberg was set to travel to South Korea and then India for the wedding of a billionaire’s son.

In Seoul Zuckerberg is expected to hold meetings with President Yoon Suk Yeol and leaders of tech titans Samsung and LG, according to South Korean media.

He will also meet the CEO of LG Electronics to discuss the development of a mixed-reality headset to compete with Apple’s Vision Pro, the Korea Economic Daily reported.

Meta, Google and others have invested billions of dollars in Reliance’s digital unit Jio Platforms as it seeks to take on Amazon and Walmart in India’s vast e-commerce market.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

The Opposition INDIA bloc has written to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai over their social media platforms’ alleged role in “aiding communal hatred” in the country and demanded that the platforms maintain neutrality in the upcoming elections.

The letters came after the Washington Post newspaper flagged alleged bias of Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube towards the ruling BJP and the Narendra Modi dispensation.

Sharing the letter to Zuckerberg on X, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said, “Letter by INDIA parties to Facebook’s Mr. Mark Zuckerberg (@finkd) citing the exhaustive investigations by the Washington Post that Meta is culpable of abetting social disharmony and inciting communal hatred in India”.

“INDIA parties also write to Google’s Mr. Sundar Pichai on exhaustive investigation by the Washington Post that Alphabet and specifically YouTube is culpable of abetting social disharmony and inciting communal hatred in India,” he said in another post while sharing the letter to Mr Pichai.

In the letter to Mr Zuckerberg, the Opposition parties have said the India National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) is an alliance of 28 political parties in India that represent the combined opposition coalition and are the ruling alliance in 11 states and represent nearly half of all Indian voters.

“You may be aware of the recent exposes by the Washington Post newspaper about the role of WhatsApp and Facebook in aiding the communal hatred campaign of the ruling BJP. Specifically, the article cites details of how this vile, communally divisive propaganda is carried out using WhatsApp groups by BJP members and supporters.

“In another article titled ‘Under India’s pressure, Facebook let propaganda and hate speech thrive’, the Post has elucidated with evidence the blatant partisanship by Facebook India executives towards the ruling dispensation. This was well known to us in the Opposition for a long time and have even raised it several times in the past,” the INDIA bloc parties said.

“It is very clear from these exhaustive investigations by the Washington Post that Meta is culpable of abetting social disharmony and inciting communal hatred in India. Further, we have data that shows algorithmic moderation and suppression of Opposition leaders’ content on your platform while also promoting ruling party content,” they said in the letter sent by AICC general secretary organisation KC Venugopal.

The Opposition bloc demanded that Meta’s operations in India remain neutral.

“Such blatant partisanship and bias towards one political formation by a private foreign company is tantamount to interfering in India’s democracy, one that we in the INDIA alliance will not take lightly,” the letter further said.

“In light of the upcoming national elections in 2024, it is our earnest and urgent plea to you to consider these facts seriously and ensure immediately that Meta’s operations in India remain neutral and are not used wittingly or unwittingly to cause social unrest or distort India’s much cherished democratic ideals,” it stated.

The Opposition said it was ironic that the parties had to write the letter in the birth anniversary month of Mahatma Gandhi, the greatest champion of non-violence and social harmony in history.

The parties expressed confidence that Zuckerberg and Meta also yearn for a harmonious India that the Mahatma wished for.

In their letter to Google’s Sundar Pichai, they said the recent expose by the Washington Post titled “He live-streamed his attacks on Indian Muslims. YouTube gave him an award” about the role of YouTube in propagating communal hatred and dividing Indian society.

“Specifically, the article cites details of how this vile, communally divisive propaganda is carried out using YouTube by BJP members and supporters.

“It is very clear from this exhaustive investigation by the Washington Post that Alphabet and specifically YouTube is culpable of abetting social disharmony and inciting communal hatred in India.

“Further, we have data that shows algorithmic moderation and suppression of Opposition leaders’ content on your platform while also promoting ruling party content,” they said.

The INDIA parties also urged Google that its platforms operating in India remain neutral and are not used to cause social unrest or distort India’s much cherished democratic ideals, especially during the upcoming elections.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared a selfie on his Instagram sporting two black eyes he sustained during jiu-jitsu training. The 39-year-old billionaire along with a selfie wrote, “Sparring got a little out of hand. May need to update my avatar.”

See the post here:

Since being posted, the post has received over 4 lakh likes on Instagram and a barrage of comments. A user wrote, “Nooooo who did this to you!”

Another user wrote, “How does the other guy look Mark?”

“Might need to keep your hands up Mark,” the third user wrote.

Last year, the Meta CEO in an interview with Joe Rogan shared that he tries to do at least two hours of daily physical activity because he wakes up in the morning to a million messages. He shared that he began training in martial arts form during covid-19 pandemic. He said that the sport gave him an energy boost. 

“MMA is the perfect thing,” Mr. Zuckerberg added, “After an hour or two of working out, or rolling or wrestling with friends, or training with different folks, it’s like now I’m ready to go solve whatever problem at work for the day.”

The billionaire trains with coach Dave Camarillo. 

Meanwhile, Mr Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan recently announced their plans to help eradicate human diseases by 2100. In a statement, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) – Zuckerberg and Chan’s foundation –  announced that they aim to develop a computing system that researchers can use with artificial intelligence (AI) to catalogue cells and predict how they act when diseased. The data could be used to make groundbreaking new discoveries that could help cure, prevent, or manage all diseases by the end of this century, the foundation said.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan recently announced their plans to help eradicate human diseases by 2100. In a statement, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) – Zuckerberg and Chan’s foundation –  announced that they aim to develop a computing system that researchers can use with artificial intelligence (AI) to catalogue cells and predict how they act when diseased. The data could be used to make groundbreaking new discoveries that could help cure, prevent, or manage all diseases by the end of this century, the foundation said. 

“AI is creating new opportunities in biomedicine, and building a high-performance computing cluster dedicated to life science research will accelerate progress on important scientific questions about how our cells work,” said CZI Co-founder and Co-CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 

“Developing digital models capable of predicting all cell types and cell states from the genome will help researchers better understand our cells and how they behave in health and disease,” he added. 

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According to the press note, CZI’s aim is to give researchers access to generative AI to study healthy and diseased cells. Using predictive models of human cells can help researchers better understand how the body responds to diseases or new medicines, the company said, adding that it is like running a “virtual cell” through different simulations to see what might happen. 

“AI models could predict how an immune cell responds to an infection, what happens at the cellular level when a child is born with a rare disease, or even how a patient’s body will respond to a new medication,” Priscilla Chan said. 

“We hope that this collaborative effort will generate new insights about the fundamental characteristics of our cells,” she added. 

The foundation explained that the new system will be trained on datasets from the software tool CZ Cell x Gene, as well as resources from the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network and Chan Zuckerberg Institute for Advanced Biological Imaging, and publicly available data. Once completed, the computing system is expected to be one of the biggest AI clusters used for non-profit research. 

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg once again trained with UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) champions this week, but this time on a speedboat. 

Mr Zuckerberg, a passionate UFC enthusiast with a diverse martial arts background, joined the competitors on the mat back in July. Now, the 39-year-old billionaire shared an exhilarating video of himself training with Israel Adesanya and Alexander Volkanovsk on a speedboat. 

“Summer Vibes,” he captioned the video, which is cut in the style of a movie trailer. 

Watch the clip below: 

In the short video, Mr Zuckerberg is seen performing a single-leg takedown on Mr Volkanovski. Mr Adesanya, on the other hand, is seen performing professional wrestling moves on others on the boat. The clip also features audio and music from the newest ‘Mission Impossible’ film. 

Since being shared, the video has accumulated more than 186,000 likes and over 3.8 million views. In the comment section, one user wrote, “This is epic”. Another added, “Look so fun! Betting on @Zuck for sure”. 

“That was so epic!! One of the best days ever,” commented a third user. “This is awesome,” said fourth. 

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Meanwhile, this comes amid rumours that the Meta CEO will fight Twitter boss Elon Musk. This week, Mr Musk even challenged Mr Zuckerberg for a cage fight yet again. 

The tech leaders first sparked conversations about a potential MMA-style cage match in a series of back-and-forth messages on their platforms in June. However, Mr Musk later said he was joking about the entire thing. But on Wednesday, Mr Musk again accused Mr Zuckerberg of avoiding the clash. 

“Why won’t he fight me!? Zuck said “name the place”, so I named his house, but they said he was away on travel. Perhaps we can fight when we returns?” Mr Musk said responding to a post on X. 

Billionaire Elon Musk has again challenged Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg for a cage fight, accusing him of avoiding the clash. Mr Musk was responding to a post on X (formerly Twitter), the platform he owns. In his response, the world’s richest man accused Mr Zuckerberg of apparently not accepting the challenge. The tech leaders first sparked conversations about a potential MMA-style cage match in a series of back-and-forth messages on their platforms in June. However, Mr Musk later said he was joking about the entire thing.

But now, the X owner is back with a new post on the cage fight issue.

Why won’t he fight me!? Zuck said “name the place”, so I named his house, but they said he was away on travel.

Perhaps we can fight when we returns?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 6, 2023

A user had said that searching on Google for Mark Zuckerberg these days throws more UFC content than his actual podcasts.

“Why won’t he fight me!? Zuck said “name the place”, so I named his house, but they said he was away on travel. Perhaps we can fight when we returns?” Mr Musk said in response.

The post has been viewed more than 26,000 times and sparked a buzz among the users of the platform.

“You got him,” commented one user. “Is there a way to resolve this issue without violence? Perhaps you could talk to him or his representatives and see if you can come to an agreement,” said another.

“Zuck said that he don’t want to have a “friendly” match in his backyard. He wants to be serious,” a third user commented.

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The tech titans started creating buzz about the cage fight just before Meta announced a rival to Twitter.

The two men have clashed for years but a recent comment by a Meta executive suggesting that Twitter was not run “sanely” irked Mr Musk, eventually leading to the two men offering each other out for a cage fight.

The buzz has its genesis in the announcement made by Mr Zuckerberg in February about ‘Threads’ with “increased authenticity” and “security across services” – both digs at Twitter Blue.