Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg World’s Third Richest Now as Tech Titans Rule Top 3 for First Time

New Delhi: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now the world’s third-richest person, overtaking Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffet, as shares of his social media giant climbed 2.4% despite a data breach scandal.

According to calculations by Bloomberg, Zuckerberg now trails only Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates.

The current standings mark the first time the world’s three richest people all made their fortunes in the tech world. Zuckerberg, 34, is now worth $81.6 billion, about $373 million more than Buffett, Bloomberg reported.

According to a Fortune report, investors are loving Facebook more than ever. Investors are also happy at the news that Facebook has grabbed its biggest sports streaming deal yet with the Premier League.

The Times reported that Facebook has won exclusive rights to show all 380 live matches in parts of Asia — Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos — from 2019 until 2022, in a deal worth about $264 million.

Since going public in 2012, Facebook has seen its stock rise more than 400 per cent.

In the latest privacy goof-up, Facebook admitted that over 800,000 users were affected by a bug on its platform and Messenger that unblocked some people the users had blocked.

The bug was active between May 29 and June 5 — and while someone who was unblocked could not see content shared with friends, they could have seen things posted to a wider audience, said Facebook.

Facebook has already been grappling with privacy issues like the Cambridge Analytica data scandal involving 87 million users and another bug that changed 14 million users’ privacy setting defaults to public.