Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s total net worth stood at $142 billion in September 2021. Today, his net worth is a ‘measly’ $55.3 billion at the time of writing, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. This precipitous drop in wealth, a 1/3rd drop, comes at a time when Zuckerberg’s Meta has been struggling to pivot from being a social media giant to a Metaverse-first company.

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The $71 billion loss comes as a result of Meta’s shares being in a downward freefall. Currently trading around the $148 mark, the shares are down by 56.28 percent since the start of the year. While tech stocks like Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft and others have been struggling on Wall Street in 2022, Meta’s fall far outpaces them. Apple’s shares are only down by 15.13 percent, Alphabet is down by 28.91 percent, and Microsoft’s shares are down by 26.95 percent in the same period.

Most of Zuckerberg’s wealth comes from his holdings in Meta shares. The CEO and co-founder of the company holds over 350 million shares in the company, according to Meta’s latest financials.

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Not only are the external pressures like extra volatility in the tech segment along with increasing interest rates pushing down Meta’s prices, but the company’s own performance is also contributing to the wipeout. Meta’s earlier earnings reports highlighted that Facebook had added no new users in February for the first time in its history. Zuckerberg’s wealth collapsed by $31 billion on the day of the report, as Meta’s stock crashed.

Meta’s continuing inroads into Augmented Reality (AR) technology have also created significant Capex for the company, further stressing its financials even as the company struggles to properly monetise other offerings like WhatsApp and Instagram. The company spent a whopping $10 billion on Metaverse last year, and expenditure to build the infrastructure for the Metaverse is unlikely to slow down anytime soon.

But despite his tremendous loss of wealth, Zuckerberg is one of the richest individuals on the planet. Only 19 others can claim to be richer than him today.

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(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)

First Published:Sept 20, 2022 4:46 PM IST