Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg loses $71BILLION in one year.
The ultra-rich businessman lost more than any other billionaire this year and fell down to his lowest wealth ranking in years amid challenging times for the tech industry
Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004 and has gone on to become one of the world’s richest people
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has lost $71billion (£62.6billion) this year – more than any other billionaire, according to Bloomberg.
Mr Zuckerberg, 38, was worth $142billion (£125.2billion) in September 2021 but on Tuesday his wealth had reportedly dropped to $56billion (£49.4billion).
The huge loss means that the staggeringly rich social media boss, who renamed his Facebook company as Meta in 2021, has fallen down to 20th among the world’s billionaires.
The ranking is his lowest placing since 2014.
He is now beneath three members of the Walton family and two members of Koch family.
Elsewhere on the list of billionaire’s tracked by Bloomberg, Elon Musk’s net worth fell by $6billion (£5.3billion), Bill and Melinda Gates lost $27billion (£23.8billion) and $26billion (£22.9billion) respectively and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos lost $46billion (£40.6billion).
Mr Zuckerberg fell down to 20th in the billionaire rich – his lowest since 2014
In February, Meta said that Facebook had no growth in its monthly users, which set off a historic collapse in its stock prices.
Mr Zuckerberg’s wealth dropped by $31billion (£27.3billion) and was up there with the largest 24-hour loss of wealth ever.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has faced backlash over its plans to promote short Instagram videos called Reels, which it also owns.
Facebook was rebranded as Meta in 2021, with the Meta serving as Facebook’s parent company
According to Bloomberg, Apple is down 14 percent while Amazon and Google’s parent company Alphabet are down 26 and 29 percent respectively.
Meta is performing the worst compared to its peers and has fallen by 57 percent.
As a whole, the tech industry is in the midst of challenging times as advertisers look at how they spend in the face an upcoming recession.
Mr Zuckerberg has more than 350 million shares in Meta, which is where most of his wealth is tied up, according to the company’s most recent proxy statement.
Mr Zuckerberg has faced criticism in the past over Facebook’s handling of it’s users’ data
The powerful billionaire came under scrutiny following the Cambridge Analytica scandal that came about after the 2016 US presidential elections.
In 2018, he also gave evidence to US Congress over allegations that Facebook harvested users’ personal data.
In a written statement on Facebook to the Congress, he apologised for fake news, election interference and hate speech on the social media site.
He said: “It’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well,”
“That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy.
“We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake.
“It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”
