Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) is a top-performing stock in 2024, hitting new all-time highs of $629.79 on Friday, and boosting the wealth of CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

What Happened: Zuckerberg currently ranks as the third-richest person in the world with $215 billion in wealth, according to Bloomberg. The 40-year-old trails only Elon Musk ($362 billion) and Jeff Bezos ($240 billion).

The $87.3 billion gain by Zuckerberg trails only Musk's gain of $133 billion for the year. He ranks just ahead of Jensen Huang's $82.6 billion addition to his wealth, ranking 11^th on the list.

Zuckerberg is now worth more than the following people combined:

• Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway CEO: $147.0 billion, 9^th richest
• Ken Griffin, Citadel LLC CEO: $42.4 billion, 37^th richest
• Peter Thiel, Venture capitalist: $15.9 billion, 141^st richest
• Mark Cuban, NBA owner, investor: $8.1 billion, 365^th richest

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Why It's Important: Zuckerberg passing Buffett comes as the legendary investor, known as the Oracle of Omaha, has given away a portion of his wealth and has pledged to continue doing so.

Buffett's wealth is up $27.2 billion in 2024 thanks to a higher price for Berkshire Hathaway shares.

Griffin, Thiel and Cuban have all added to their wealth totals in 2024 by $5.9 billion, $6.7 billion and $1.2 billion.

Zuckerberg is of course connected to Thiel in Meta Platforms, which was formerly called Facebook, history. Thiel was the first outside investor for Facebook and gained a portion of his wealth by being an early investor in the company and selling his stake over the years.

Meta stock traded between $317.77 and $629.79 over the last 52 weeks. Its shares are up 80% year-to-date as of Friday.

Meta, touting strong quarterly results and growth, is currently valued at more than $1.5 trillion.

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