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Meta suffered a historic drop in market; CEO Zuckerberg loses $230 bn in total company value

BNE ADMIN


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Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg briefly dropped out of the world’s wealthiest 10 billionaires this week, after Meta suffered a historic market rout on Wednesday, wiping out $230 billion of the company’s value and setting the record for the largest single-day trading loss for any U.S. Company, ever.

Meta’s shares plummeted 23% in after-hours trading on Wednesday, after the company reported weak quarterly revenues and profits, which fell below analyst expectations. Meta executives blamed the shortfall, in part, on Apple’s new privacy rules on iOS, which the company introduced last October. The rules have crimped Facebook’s ability to serve ads.  

Meta also reported that Facebook’s daily active users had declined for the first time ever, dropping by about half a million over the previous quarter. The fall spooked investors, who worry that Meta and its fleet of social media apps are losing ground to younger rivals like Snap and TikTok, which dominate the Gen Z market.

Zuckerberg, who owns a 13% stake in Meta, saw his personal wealth collapse in line with his company’s. As markets opened Thursday, Zuckerberg’s net worth hit a low of $92 billion, tanking from $120.6 billion the day before.

The Facebook founder’s single-day loss is the second largest in history. Last November, Tesla CEO Elon Musk lost $35 billion in net worth after he tweeted plans to sell 10% of his company shares. Tesla’s stock plummeted 12% as investors rushed to get ahead of the CEO’s selloff. But Musk remains firmly placed as the world’s wealthiest man, with a net worth of $231 billion.

BNE ADMIN