AW, POOR ZUCK!
Net worth plunges to only $37B
Mark Zuckerberg has seen his net worth plummet by more than $100 billion in the last 13 months as the stock price of his company, Meta, nosedived Thursday.
Zuckerberg’s net worth was pegged at around $37 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index — plunging him out of the top 20 on the list of the world’s wealthiest people.
In September 2021, Zuckerberg reached the height of his wealth with a net worth of $142 billion.
Since then, Meta’s stock price has fallen by more than 67% — including 25% Thursday after the company’s quarterly report showed a massive drop in profits.
Shares at six-year low
In May 2020, Zuckerberg was the third richest person in the world — behind Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates. Since then, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has jumped to the top of the list.
Meta stock closed Thursday at $97.94 — its lowest price since 2016. At its peak, Meta was trading at $382 per share.
Meta announced Wednesday that revenue dropped for the second consecutive quarter as it struggles with falling advertising sales due to stiff competition from rising social-media app TikTok.
Menlo Park, Calif.-based Meta earned $4.4 billion, or $1.64 per share, in the three-month period that ended Sept. 30. That’s down 52% from $9.19 billion, or $3.22 per share, in the same period a year earlier. Revenue fell 4% to $27.71 billion from $29.01 billion, slightly higher than the $27.4 billion that analysts had predicted.
Meta’s disappointing results followed weak earnings reports from Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft this week.
Some of the Meta’s investors are concerned the company is spending too much money and confusing people with its focus on the metaverse, a virtual mixed- and augmented-reality concept that few people understand — while it also grapples with a weakening advertising business.
Meta’s Reality Labs division, overseeing its metaverse-related ventures, burned through $3 billion this past quarter, the company told investors.
Zuckerberg has come under widespread ridicule for his zealous devotion to the metaverse cause. In August, Zuckerberg posted a selfie of his metaverse avatar posing in front of the Eiffel Tower. The image was meant to celebrate the expansion of his virtual-reality platform Horizon Worlds into France and Spain, but was widely mocked and became a viral meme.
Zuckerberg predicted his vision will be vindicated. “Obviously it has a long way to go before it’s going to be what we aspire for it to be,” Zuckerberg said of Horizon Worlds. “We think we’re doing some leading work there, but obviously we need to get that into the product and continue innovating on that.”