A whopping $70 billion has evaporated from Zuckerberg’s fortune since the beginning of the year, dropping him to the 20th richest person in the world.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Mark Zuckerberg started the year with a fortune of 125 billion. But since then, it has grown to 55.3 billion, and Forbes even published an estimate of 53.4 billion.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus, has had a tumultuous 12 months since Zuckerberg announced it would become a “metauniverse” company and then launched a powerful new branding campaign.
Facebook even reported its first decline in user numbers, losing about a million active users in the last quarter of 2021.
The brand faced major controversy last fall when whistleblower Frances Hagen released internal company documents, including internal research that showed Instagram was contributing to eating disorders and suicidal thoughts among teenage girls.
Meta’s net income fell 36%, or more than $3 billion, in the second quarter compared to the same period last year.
In April, the company announced that it has spent almost 10 billion on investments in the metaverse in 2021, which is about 50% of its capital expenditure. As of April, Meta estimated that around 10,000 people were working on metaverse projects.
“The metaverse business won’t be a significant contributor to us until the end of this decade, it’s probably realistic that the foundation will be laid in this decade, and they’ll be a significant contributor to the bottom line of this company in the 2030s,” Zuckerberg. said at the annual meeting of shareholders in May.
Elon Musk (Tesla), Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Bill Gates (Microsoft) are among the top five richest people, but they also recorded financial losses. But less compared to Zuckerberg: (Mask: -2.5 billion), Bezos (44.4), Gates (-26.2).
It’s not surprising, really, as tech stock prices have been hit hard by the economic downturn last year. The paper fortunes of many tech titans are strictly calculated on the basis of large stakes in the companies they founded.
Sources: Fortune, Business Insider
Photo: Dreamtime
Source: Hot News RO
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