Warren Buffett Passes $100 Billion in Net Worth

Founder and CEO of US online social media and social networking service Facebook Mark Zuckerberg reacts upon his arrival for a meeting with European Commission vice-president in charge for Values and Transparency, in Brussels, on February 17, 2020. KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP via Getty Images

There are billionaires, and there are “centibillionaires,” or individuals who are worth $100 billion or more. For a long time, the “centibillionaire” club was exclusively comprised of just three men: Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and French fashion mogul Bernard Arnault. The elite of the elite, men with incomprehensible wealth.

Last year, amid a global pandemic that seemed to only enrichen billionaires,  Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk became the fourth member of the club thanks to Tesla’s wild stock gain. And now, two other titans of being rich have also recently achieved the centibillionaire status: Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

According to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, Buffett’s net worth officially surpassed $100 billion on Thursday for the first time. In 2021 so far, the 90-year-old investor has added $13 billion to his fortune as shares of his investment conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway soared, making him sixth richest person on Earth.

Buffett is known for investing in slow-growth, “value” stocks. Berkshire Hathaway owns large stakes in insurance, oil, transportation and consumer retail companies. Many of these industries suffered bad losses during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic last year. Some of them have bounced back from their 2020 low to some degree. Buffett believes more recovery is on the way. He recently revealed that Berkshire had bought stakes in Chevron and Verizon, indicating a renewed interest in oil and telecom.

Zuckerberg became a centibillionaire last August. His Facebook was by no means the top-performing tech stock of 2020. But its shares have steadily climbed since crashing to rock bottom last March. Last August, Facebook shares hit an all-time high of $282, which pushed Zuckerberg’s net worth past the $100 billion mark.

Facebook shares have stayed largely flat in 2021 so far, trading just high enough to keep its CEO in the centibillionaire club.

2020 was an eventful year for Facebook. In July, Zuckerberg, along with the CEOs of Apple, Amazon and Twitter, testified before the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel to respond to allegations related to their companies’ monopolistic market power.

On Wednesday, Facebook filed a court document seeking to dismiss a series of federal antitrust lawsuits brought by the FTC and state attorneys general. Facebook argued that law enforcers failed to prove that it’s a market monopoly. The company cited TikTok, Apple’s iMessage, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn and Google’s YouTube as competitors that wouldn’t fit under the government’s definition of social networking.