Musk got Zucker punched.
Mark Zuckerberg slid into third place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Friday — surpassing his rival, Elon Musk, for the first time in four years.
Zuckerberg, 39, added $58.9 billion to his net worth this year as Meta Platform Inc. soared to new heights, Bloomberg reported.
The 52-year-old Musk, on the other hand, was ranked first on the index as recently as last month, after which his own wealth diminished by $48.4 billion, the outlet said.
Musk is now worth $180.6 billion, while Zuckerberg is chugging along at $186.9 billion.
Musk plummeted to a measly fourth place after Reuters reported that Tesla nixed plans to build a less-expensive car, which sent shares lower.
However, the enraged billionaire refuted the claims on his X platform, writing, “Reuters is lying (again)” — without citing inaccuracies.
The Reuters reveal also coincided with news that Tesla’s vehicle deliveries fell for three months, marking its first year-over-year decline since the beginning of COVID-19.
Musk’s net worth could take an additional hit after his $56 billion Tesla pay package was struck down by a Delaware judge, Bloomberg noted. The index is using options from the pay package — which is one of the South African entrepreneur’s largest assets — into its calculations of his wealth.
Zuckerberg has not seen a top three spot on the Bloomberg ranking since Nov. 16, 2020, when he was worth $105.6 billion, compared to Musk’s $102.1 billion.
In November 2021, the wealth gap between the Meta and Tesla titans was as large as $215 billion, Bloomberg noted.
The two billionaires have long been engaged in a lengthy public back-and-forth — and even traded threats to spar in a cage fight last year.
Zuckerberg, however, called off the idea in August 2023, saying that it was “time to move on.”
