CEO Mark Zuckerberg Made $1 Billion Today From (FB) Facebook Shares

Oct. 31, 2013 — -- intro:

What a ride it's been for Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. First there was a positive earnings report released on Wednesday, when the stock soared more than 10 percent.

But the billions of dollars in gains were erased a short time later during a gloomy conference call in which investors learned that teens weren't logging into Facebook as much and there were fewer untapped opportunities for advertising growth.

But forget all that. Overnight, investors had a chance to sleep on all the news and today Facebook stock is up again about 4 percent.

Read More: Why Teens Are Leaving Facebook

Mr. Zuckerberg's wild ride first started with Facebook's IPO in May 2012. The stock debuted at $38 with much fanfare and a botched first day of trading on Nasdaq, only to close flat. Over the following months, the shares sank by half, and languished in the $20 range until mid-summer. But upbeat earnings reports have propelled the shares to their current level, making many billions for the young CEO.

Unlike the rest of us who are advised by financial experts to diversify our investment holdings, Zuckerberg is putting his eggs in one basket. But through the turmoil, Zuckerberg has done just fine, recently buying four homes around his in Palo Alto, Calif.

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With the stock closing on Wednesday at $49.01, Zuckerberg's stock holdings were worth nearly $30 billion, according to estimates from executive compensation research firm Equilar.

And with Facebook shares hovering around $50.80 in mid-day trading, that $1.79 difference raises his net worth by over $1 billion. With every dollar increase in stock price, Zuckerberg's holdings shoot up more than $607 million, according to Equilar's calculations.

Here's a deeper look at Zuckerberg's wealth by the numbers:

quicklist: title: 609,539,536 sharescategory: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook stock holdings text: 609,539,536 shares, including 60,000,000 options with an exercise price of 6 cents, according to estimates from Equilar.

quicklist: title: $500,000 category: Mark Zuckerberg's salary text:

His salary in 2012 was $500,000 compared to chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg's and the chief financial officer's $340,000 pay.

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quicklist: title: $2.3 billion category: Mark Zuckerberg's total compensation text: Zuckerberg's total actual compensation of about $2.3 billion made him the highest paid CEO this year, according to GMI Rating's 2013 CEO Pay Survey.

Read More: CEO Pay Report Shows Big Gains; Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg Gets $2.3B

quicklist: title: $19 billioncategory: Mark Zuckerberg's net worth text:The Harvard drop-out's net worth is $19 billion, according to Forbes. But that may be low. According to this handy real-time Wealth-O-Meter from the Wall Street Journal, it's $24 billion today. But who's counting?