Mark Zuckerberg is now the second richest person in the world, overtaking Jeff Bezos

meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has overtaken Jeff Bezos to become the second richest person in the world.

Zuckerberg's net worth reached $206.2 billion on Thursday, topping the former Amazon CEO and president's $205.1 billion net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The Facebook co-founder now trails Tesla chief Elon Musk by nearly $50 billion, the index showed.

With his 13% stake in Meta, Zuckerberg's net worth has grown by $78 billion since the start of the year, more than any member of the 500 richest people tracked by the Bloomberg Index. Meta shares closed Thursday at a record high of $582.77, representing a nearly 68% jump since early January when its shares were trading at $346.29.

Zuckerberg's rise to second place on the index Thursday reflects how his personal wealth has grown this year alongside investor enthusiasm for the social media giant's rising profits.

Wall Street has consistently encouraged Meta throughout 2024 as the company has consistently reported quarterly earnings that beat analysts' estimates. In July, Meta said its second-quarter sales rose 22% to $39.07 billion, marking a 20% top in the fourth quarter on top of revenue growth.

Meta has pointed to its massive artificial intelligence investment in helping improve the performance of its online advertising platform as a reason for its sales growth. The company's online advertising system suffered a major setback in 2021 when Apple introduced an iOS privacy update that weakened its ability to track users across the web. In February 2022, Meta said it would spend $10 billion in revenue on privacy changes.

In late 2022, Zuckerberg introduced a major cost-cutting plan that extended into the following year and ultimately saw 21,000 Meta employees lose their jobs, or about a quarter of the company's workforce.

Investors reacted favorably to Meta's cost cuts as the company's online advertising business began to revive and was bolstered by massive digital ad spending campaigns at Chinese-linked retailers Temu and Xien.

While Meta continues to spend billions of dollars on the virtual and augmented reality technology needed to underpin the futuristic concept of Metaverse, investors have become more tolerant of investments as long as the company's core advertising business remains healthy.

Last week, Meta debuted its Orion AR glasses, which earned positive reviews from the few who tested the prototype.

watch: CNBC Mater reviews the Orion AR glasses prototype