China-Singapore Jingwei, September 20. According to Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook's parent company Meta, has paid a high price in the real world for his layout of the metaverse.
Zuckerberg’s net worth has shrunk by more than half this year to $71 billion (nearly 500 billion yuan)
, the most among the super-rich tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Source: Bloomberg Billionaires Index
With a net worth of $55.9 billion, Zuckerberg ranks 20th among the world's billionaires, the lowest ranking since 2014, behind three Waltons and two Kochs.
Less than two years ago, Zuckerberg, 38, was worth $106 billion, an elite group of billionaires in the world, surpassed only by Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.
Zuckerberg's fortune peaked at $142 billion in 2021, when the company's stock traded as high as $382.
The following month, Zuckerberg launched Meta, which had largely gone downhill as the company struggled to gain a foothold in tech.
Earnings reports that began in February were dismal.
At the time, the company reported no monthly growth in Facebook users, triggering a historic plunge in the stock price and a $31 billion drop in Zuckerberg's fortune, the biggest one-day drop in wealth ever.
Other issues include Instagram's bet on short-form video Reels.
Despite its lower ad revenue value, the industry as a whole has been hurt by a drop in marketing spending amid concerns about an economic slowdown.
The company's investment in Metaverse also weighed on shares, said Laura Martin, senior internet analyst at Needham & Co. Zuckerberg, who expects the project to lose a "significant amount" of money over the next three to five years.
Almost all of Zuckerberg's wealth is tied to Meta stock.
According to the company's latest proxy statement, he holds more than 350 million shares.
As of the close on the 20th, Beijing time, Facebook’s stock price was reported at $148.02, an increase of 1.18%, with a total market value of $397.8 billion.
(Sino-Singapore Jingwei APP)