According to Bloomberg's Billionaire Index, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's net worth has decreased by more than $100 billion this year as Meta, Facebook's parent company, encounters investor skepticism on its future development trajectory.
The 38-year-old now has a net worth of almost $36 billion. In contrast, according to Bloomberg data, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, was worth $211 billion as of Thursday, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, was worth $139 billion, and Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, was worth $110 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg's Net Worth Slashed by $10 Billion
The value of Meta decreased by as much as 22% during trading on Thursday, leaving the business with a $271 billion market cap. Approximately 367 million Meta shares are owned by Zuckerberg, according to the data aggregator Whale Wisdom. That represents around 13.5% of the company's total outstanding shares.
On Wednesday night, Meta released earnings that fell short of analysts' forecasts, and several Wall Street analysts downgraded the stock.
The business is up against growing opposition from other social media sites like TikTok and criticism over its investment in the Metaverse, a virtual world that Zuckerberg has predicted is the internet's future.
Zuckerberg is formerly known as the world's youngest self-made billionaire. At the age of 23, he participated in the 2008 IPO of Facebook.
Per NBC News, Zuckerberg's net worth peaked at $142 billion in September 2021. Bloomberg said that among those on the wealth list, Zuckerberg has taken the single-biggest blow, while many other billionaires have had their personal net worth decrease in following months along with general stock market declines.
In the third quarter, Meta's Reality Labs subsidiary, which includes its metaverse and virtual reality operations, recorded an operating loss of $3.67 billion, up from a loss of $2.63 billion in the same period last year. It brought in $285 million.
Read Also: Russia-Ukraine War: Vladimir Putin Fires Back at West's 'Dirty Bomb' Accusations, Nuclear Blackmail
Meta Company Expects Decline in Profit
According to Meta, Reality Labs operating losses will increase considerably year over year in 2023. Although somewhat more than the $27.4 billion that experts had projected, revenue decreased by 4% to $27.71 billion from $29.01 billion.
Analysts were anticipating a profit of $1.90 per share on average. Investors in the firm are worried that Meta is overspending and misinforming customers due to its emphasis on the metaverse, a virtual, mixed, and augmented reality idea.
The announcements follow CEO Zuckerberg's disastrous decision to give metaverse avatars legs before they are truly ready. Additionally, according to Meta and Zuckerberg, revenues would continue to shrink throughout the current quarter, therefore proving that the decline would be a pattern rather than an exception.
Meta also stated that, in contrast to last year's double-digit employee increase, it anticipates personnel levels to remain around the same as in the current quarter. As of September 30, the corporation employed roughly 87,000 people, a 28% increase from the previous year.
Despite the drop in income, Meta increased its user base; as of September 30, Facebook had 2.96 billion monthly active users, an increase of 2% from the previous year. Meta's disappointing results followed weak earnings reports from Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft this week, as per Daily Mail.
Related Article: Kanye West Net Worth 2022: How Did Ye Drop from Billion Dollar Man to Just $400 Million in Value?
@YouTube
