This year, will Mark Zuckerberg surpass Elon Musk to take the title of “third-richest person in the world”?

With a wealth that has increased significantly this year, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, is vying with Tesla CEO Elon Musk for the title of “world’s third-richest person”.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Zuckerberg’s wealth has increased by over $54 million since January. As of Friday’s closing bell, his net worth was $182 billion, placing him just $7 billion behind Musk.

The majority of the 39-year-old internet billionaire’s wealth comes from his 13% ownership in Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, according to Business Insider. He hasn’t been any richer since November 2020.

In part because of Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency” cost-cutting initiatives, the company’s shares have increased 43% this year.

Tesla’s net worth, on the other hand, has decreased by $40 million.

Tesla has dropped 29% as a result of investors’ worries about a downturn in global demand, whereas Meta and other “Magnificent Seven” tech firms have increased.

Tesla is “meant to be a high-growth stock, and the short answer is that it looks like it won’t be that high growth this year,” according to equities expert Seth Goldstein.

“When growth there is slowing, we tend to see a big reaction from the market.”

On the Bloomberg index this year, Musk has been surpassed by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and Bernard Arnault, the head of LVMH.

Musk and Zuckerberg chastised one other last year, which intensified their competition after Meta introduced Threads as a possible alternative to X, formerly known as Twitter, which Musk acquired for around $44 billion in October 2022.

The two tech titans even pledged to battle it out in a cage to resolve their disagreements, but that doesn’t seem realistic.