Mark Zuckerberg is in position to overtake Jeff Bezos as the world's fifth richest person.
After Facebook's strong earnings report this week, the value of Zuckerberg's 428 million shares soared by more than $7.3 billion, and are now worth close to $48 billion.
Meanwhile, on the back of weaker-than-expected earnings, the value of Bezos' 83 million Amazon shares plunged by more than $3.7 billion, making them worth nearly $49 billion. Which means, purely in terms of stock ownership in their respective companies, Zuckerberg is less than $1 billion from overtaking Bezos on the billionaire list.
Of course, Bezos has a number of other assets contributing to his total net worth. Forbes' real-time index puts his net worth at $51.6 billion. Meanwhile, the Bloomberg billionaires ranking pegs Bezos' wealth at $55.8 billion.
It's unclear how much of the stock moves are baked into either ranking, since they are as of Thursday, and both still have Bezos at No. 4.
In just the past year, Zuckerberg has vaulted from 16th place to sixth on the list, jumping past the Waltons, the Kochs and Larry Ellison. It's all the more amazing given that Zuckerberg is only 31 years old, and Facebook is just 12.
Still, he has a long way to go to catch up to the world's richest man, Bill Gates. Facebook's stock price would have to hit $183 for him to take the crown from Gates — not impossible given his company's shares were trading at $38 when it went public nearly four years ago.
Zuckerberg's rising wealth may also be good for charities. He and his wife have pledged to give 99 percent of their Facebook shares to an LLC, which the CEO said will make charitable donations and for-profit investments.
His remaining 1 percent is worth $478 million today — and probably far more in the future.