Tech mogul Mark Zuckerberg on November 6 lost $5 billion of his wealth tied to Meta stocks, after shares dropped by 2.3 per cent on reports that internal projections peg a “chunk” of the company's revenues to come from running advertisements for scams, Forbes reported.
As a result, Mark Zuckerberg, who through the year has been third richest person in the world after Tesla chief Elon Musk and Oracle's Larry Ellison, lost $5 billion of his net worth due to the stock drop on November 6.
Notably, Mark Zuckerberg holds around 13 per cent of Meta shares. He has now dropped out of the top 5 richest people in the world.
How much did Mark Zuckerberg drop in billionaire rankings?
Before Meta's stock moved, 41-year-old Mark Zuckerberg was the third richest person in the world. After today's drop, he is now behind Elon Musk ($496.5 billion), Larry Ellison ($298.8 billion), Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ($257 billion), and Google co-founders Larry Page ($235 billion) and Sergey Brin ($217.9 billion).
The Forbes Real-time billionaires list showed the Meta Platforms co-founder at sixth place, with net worth of $212.5 billion, down by $5.6 billion or 2.57 per cent, at time of writing, at 10.46 pm IST on November 6.
Meta stock drops 2.3% — Why?
According to the Forbes report, Meta stock slipped 2.3 per cent to around $620.75 in the morning on November 6. This adds to the nearly 17.5 per cent drop in stock value over the past week for the company, including when it posted Q3 earnings. The single day drop was over 11 per cent on Q3 earnings day, it added.
The stock drop on November 6 came after Reuters reported that Meta's internal documents have projected as much as 10 per cent of its advertisement revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods. The report said 10 per cent revenue is estimated at around $16 billion for the company.
Speaking to Reuters, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said agency's report “present a selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams,” adding that the company’s internal estimates were lower and that the 10 per cent estimate included “many” legitimate ads.”
He did not give Reuters any updated figures and did not respond to Forbes queries, the report added.
The Reuters report added that other documents also showed the US Securities and Exchange Commission (US SEC) is scrutinising Meta for running ads for financial scams. As per Forbes report, citing UK regulatory authorities, Meta’s products were involved in 54 per cent of all payment-related scam losses in 2023 — more than double of all other social media sites combined.
(With inputs from Agencies)