Facebook changed its name, and Zuckerberg changed the name of the world's most user-owned platform from Facebook to meta, which is the English prefix of the metaverse. Facebook's market value has exceeded $1 trillion, and it is believed that after Zuckerberg's name change, Facebook's market value will continue to rise.
So what exactly is the metaverse? Zuckerberg said he hopes to build a multi-billion dollar digital platform in the future. It's very illusory to say, many people must have seen the movie "Ready Player One", the game world shown in this movie is the metaverse that Zuckerberg will achieve in the future.
Through a large number of wearable devices, the real world and the virtual world are organically combined to create a new world. People can work, play games, play all kinds of sports, even fall in love, and so on in the metaverse, and accomplish a lot of things that they can't do in reality. In fact, "Ready Player One" shows a very good metaverse world.
If Zuckerberg makes this thing, Facebook's market capitalization will definitely be the world's first. Zuckerberg doesn't want Facebook to be just a social company anymore, he has bigger ambitions.
Facebook has entered the meta-universe, and Li Ka-shing has become a big winner again, and Hong Kong's richest man holds a 4.5% stake in Facebook and is currently worth as much as $45 billion. Li Ka-shing's book wealth is $30 billion, because Facebook's stake does not take into account Li Ka-shing's personal wealth.
Facebook's shares are held by Li Ka-shing's Victoria Harbour Investment, which is an unlisted company, so it is not counted in Li Ka-shing's personal wealth. If Facebook's market capitalization continues to rise, Li Ka-shing's wealth will certainly continue to increase.
In 2008, Zuckerberg encountered a development crisis, when the company's financing encountered difficulties, and finally someone submitted Facebook's project to Li Ka-shing, and this person was Li Ka-shing's red confidant Zhou Kaixuan. Zhou Kaixuan persuaded Li Ka-shing in 8 minutes to invest $400 million.
Li Ka-shing also believes that Facebook is a very good company, investing in Facebook for so many years, Li Ka-shing has not reduced his stake in Facebook. Li Ka-shing once said that Facebook is a very good company and deserves to hold a stake in Facebook for a long time.
After Li Ka-shing invested in Facebook, Facebook's users have continued to increase, and now it has already exceeded the 1 billion mark. Facebook also successfully went public in 2012, and its market value has now exceeded the trillion-dollar mark. Li Ka-shing's $400 million also became $45 billion.
Facebook's stock has also become one of Li Ka-shing's biggest invisible assets. Many people are speculating whether Li Ka-shing is the world's richest man in the end, and we can analyze this question. At present, the wealth of Musk, the world's richest man, has reached 250 billion US dollars, equivalent to about 2 trillion Hong Kong dollars.
Li Ka-shing's wealth is indeed undervalued a lot, if Li Ka-shing is not underestimated, and the invisible wealth is calculated, can he surpass Musk?
Let's first calculate how much Li Ka-shing's listed companies are undervalued? Li Ka-shing's flagship listed companies are Cheung Shing Group and ChangHe Group. The net assets of these two companies are as high as 1 trillion yuan, but in fact, the market value of the two companies is only about 300 billion. Obviously, Li Ka-shing's assets are greatly undervalued. If calculated according to net assets, Li Ka-shing's assets should be around 800 billion.
In addition to listed companies, Li Ka-shing has many assets of unlisted companies, the largest of which is Victoria Harbour Investment. Victoria Harbour Investment's biggest asset is a 4.5% stake in Facebook and an 8% stake in Zoom, which should have assets of about US$60 billion, equivalent to about HK$500 billion. In addition, Victoria Harbour Investment also has shares in Ali, Ant and other companies, which is estimated to be about 100 billion.
So li ka-shing's total assets have come to about 1.5 trillion yuan. In addition, Li Ka-shing's cash assets should also be quite a lot, but his cash assets have been distributed to Li Zekai, and Li Ka-shing also has a lot of assets in the personal foundation, which is about one-third of Li Ka-shing's own wealth, but the specific number is difficult to estimate.
But overall, Li Ka-shing's assets should not reach HK$2 trillion. If 3 years ago, Li Ka-shing could become the world's richest man, now Li Ka-shing is very difficult, because the US stock market is flooded, and the company with a market value of more than one trillion US dollars is one after another.
Li Ka-shing is now having a hard time catching up. The point is that Tesla's stock price is still rising, and Musk's wealth is estimated to soon exceed $300 billion. Li Ka-shing's current business has entered a steady period, it is difficult to explode, and now Li Ka-shing is guarding the money.
He will also invest in some technology industries, but he is super-diversified, he will not have too much stock in a company, so even if the market value of these technology companies explodes, Li Ka-shing will not be able to skyrocket like Musk and Bezos. In fact, whether it is Li Ka-shing or Bill Gates, although they are not the richest people in the world, their wealth stage is already different.
In 1992, Bill Gates held 49% of Microsoft's shares, and then Bill Gates continued to reduce his stake in Microsoft, and bill Gates currently holds less than 1% of Microsoft's shares, and now Microsoft's market value has exceeded $1.5 trillion. If Bill Gates hadn't reduced his holdings that year, his wealth would have been more than $700 billion today.
But in fact, bill gates's wealth is only about $100 billion today, and Bill Gates has received about $56 billion in cash from Microsoft's reduction over the years, which has been invested by Bill Gates in traditional blue-chip stocks, and Bill Gates has never invested in a technology company again. The market capitalization of these companies has not increased much, so Bill Gates' wealth today is surpassed by Musk and Bezos.
In fact, the companies that Bill Gates invested in, although the market value is not high, can provide stable dividends every year, which is where the biggest success lies. That's to say that Bill Gates has billions of dollars in dividends every year, which Musk and Bezos don't have.
In fact, Li Ka-shing is also the same, and he has already passed that stage. He also pursues the wealth of the book, he values the steady development of the company and the smooth inheritance of wealth, anyway, so much wealth, their family is 100 generations are not exhausted.