Facebook co-founder Eduardo Severin (41) has become Singapore’s richest person.
According to Forbes on the 7th (local time), Severin’s net worth was $16 billion (about 21.34 trillion won), ranking first among Singapore’s richest people. Severin is the co-CEO and co-founder of B Capital Group.
Shenzhen Mairui, Chairman of Liciting’s Biomedical Electronics, who was Singapore’s richest man, was pushed to third place. Brothers Robert and Philip Ng, who run Faist Group, Singapore’s largest real estate developer, maintained second place.
Severin’s assets increased by $6.4 billion as the stock price of Meta메이저놀이터, which operates Facebook, soared. He is said to own about 2% of Meta’s shares. Meta stock has surged more than 80% over the past year.
While Severin was a student at Harvard University in 2004, he and Mark Zerker created the Facebook site in his dormitory with him. Facebook was originally a site used only by Harvard students, but as word of mouth spread to surrounding schools, it became famous as a school networking site. Currently, Facebook has grown into one of the world’s largest social network services.
Severin, who is from Brazil, was also an early investor in Facebook but has since distanced himself from the company. The social network, a movie about Facebook, portrayed Severin as a man who put up his initial capital but was kicked out of Facebook.
Severin came to the United States in 1992, became a citizen in 1998, and moved to Singapore in 2009. He gave up his American citizenship in 2011, ahead of Facebook’s initial public offering ( IPO ).
“As Severin intends to continue to reside here in the future, it is much more practical for him to become a Singaporean citizen,” Severin’s spokesperson explained at the time. The market believes that
he gave up his American citizenship to avoid huge taxes due to the Facebook IPO . This is because Singapore does not tax income earned abroad.
Severin founded B Capital Group, a venture capital ( VC ) fund, in 2016. The fund currently manages $6.5 billion in assets and primarily invests in Southeast Asian companies.
Severin is said to still be making a lot of his fortune from his shares in Meta. He ranks 171st among the world’s billionaires.