Zuckerberg now richer than Google founders

Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg is seen during the e-G8 conference, gathering Internet and information technologies leaders and experts, in Paris, Wednesday, May 25, 2011. The conference of top digerati is billed as the first of its kind, being held in connection with Group of Eight powerful nations, whose leaders are holding a summit in the Normandy resort town of Deauville on Thursday and Friday. (AP Photo/Bob Edme)

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s personal fortunes have soared, thanks to investment fund GSV Capital’s recent stake in the social networking site which has put the Harvard dropout at a worth higher than Google founder Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Earlier this week, GSV Capital Corp bought 225,000 shares in Facebook at an average price of $29.28 each.

This stake values the popular social networking site at about $70 billion.

Based on the new investment, Zuckerberg in turn is worth approximately $8 billion, a report in Time magazine said.

“With the new valuation, Zuckerberg has one-upped Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, whose fortunes are estimated to have dropped,” the Time report said.

This estimate makes Zuckerberg the third-richest man in the technology sector in the world, only behind Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Oracle’s Larry Ellison.

While Gates is estimated to be currently worth $56 billion, Ellison is the world’s fifth-richest billionaire at $ 39.5 billion.

Earlier this year, Zuckerberg’s net worth stood at $13.5 billion.

He had already shot past Apple’s Steve Jobs last year and has now passed Google’s Brin and Page, whose fortunes are now estimated to have dropped to $17 billion from $19.8 billion in March.