Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's wealth grew by almost US$8bil on Thursday thanks to stock gains, propelling the tech mogul to become the fourth richest person in the world.

Zuckerberg's company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, was up 4.82% to US$497.74 per share at market close after reporting strong earnings.

Zuckerberg's roughly 13% stake in Meta meant that his wealth grew to around US$174.5bil , according to the Forbes billionaire tracker. Zuckerberg jumped ahead of the now fifth-richest man, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who lost around US$2.8bil as Oracle stock fell.

Meta stock was up as much as 6% on Thursday before dropping down, making Zuckerberg briefly the third-richest man ahead of LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault.

On Wednesday, Meta reported second quarter earnings that beat Wall Street expectations, with revenue jumping 22% to US$39bil compared with the previous year. Net income was up 73%, thanks in part to cost-cutting measures like mass layoffs starting in 2022.

"We had a strong quarter, and Meta AI is on track to be the most used AI assistant in the world by the end of the year," said Zuckerberg in a statement on Wednesday.

Meta's market cap of US$1.23 trillion makes it the seventh largest public company in the world. In contrast, other tech giants like Apple, Google parent Alphabet and Microsoft all saw stock losses on Thursday.

Meta's stock is up nearly 44% in 2024 and has more than quadrupled since October 2022, reversing losses earlier that year. Investors have rewarded Meta after mass layoffs and a return to growth.

Tesla, SpaceX and X chief Elon Musk tops the world's richest list, followed by Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos and Arnault.

 - TNS