Mark Zuckerberg, whose Meta laid off thousands of people, is now the 12th richest person on the planet after his wealth surged to $87 billion

• Zuckerberg's wealth shot up by $10 billion to top $87 billion on Thursday.
• That's thanks to a 14% stock price increase after the company beat Wall Street expectations.

Meta has laid off thousands of staffers, which likely impacted the company's productivity and dented employee morale. But CEO Mark Zuckerberg's got one reason to celebrate.

The company's stock jumped 14% on Thursday after the company reported revenues of $28.6 billion in the first quarter of 2023, beating Wall Street expectations.

Because of that, Zuckerberg's wealth shot up by $10 billion to top $87 billion, the highest it's been in over a year. He is now the 12th richest person on the planet, per the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. The Facebook co-founder derives most of his fortune from his 13% stake in Meta. Forbes pegs his wealth at close to $85 billion.

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Zuckerberg even moved up one spot on Bloomberg's index, per Fortune, and is now ahead of Asia's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, who Bloomberg says is worth around $82.5 billion.

Despite being one of the richest people in the world, the 38-year-old Harvard dropout appears to lead a down-to-earth lifestyle. However, he does splurge on Italian sports cars and Hawaiian real estate, Insider's Avery Hartmans, Katie Canales, and Lloyd Lee reported.

Zuckerberg's current fortune stands in stark contrast to 2022, when his wealth plunged by about $70 billion in the first nine months of the year. The losses pushed him down to the 20th spot on Bloomberg's Billionaire Index in September.

Meta's costly foray into the metaverse and an industry-wide tech slump also battered Zuckerberg's wealth last year, which hit a low of $35 billion in November, per Bloomberg's Index.

The metaverse venture also proved costly to the company. Between March and May, Meta is expected to slash roughly 10,000 jobs and will not recruit for 5,000 open roles in a bid to downsize. These cuts are on top of the 11,000 jobs Meta already axed in November, part of the company's broader play to make 2023 its "year of efficiency."

Even so, Zuckerberg's not letting go of the metaverse.

He told investors as much during the company's first-quarter earnings call, which saw Reality Labs, the division that houses the company's AR and VR units, including the metaverse, post a $4 billion operating loss.

"A narrative has developed that we're somehow moving away from focusing on the metaverse vision," Zuckerberg said Wednesday. "So I just want to say upfront that, that's not accurate. We've been focusing on both AI and the metaverse for years now, and we will continue to focus on both."

Meta declined to comment.