We told you this morning: Meta’s stock collapsed following the company’s latest update on its quarterly results. However, with this fall, it is also the fortune of Mark Zuckerberg which continues to melt like snow in the sun.
Since the beginning of the year, the “value” of the boss of Meta has lost 70 billion dollars. And with the further fall in prices, it could lose another $10 billion by the close of trading on Thursday. And nothing indicates that the plunge will not continue in the days that follow.
Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune will lose another $10 billion
According to regulatory filings from August, Mark Zuckerberg owns 13.6% of Meta Class A shares and more than half of the voting rights. It is therefore both assured of a dominant position in the group and very sensitive to fluctuations in the stock market. Which is almost a drawer joke in Silicon Valley.
After seeing their fortunes grow exponentially, great entrepreneurs can then lose much, if not most, of what they had amassed almost as quickly on one ineffective decision or strategic direction. Since the beginning of the year, Meta’s share price has fallen by 61.7% (from $338 to $129.82 at the close of trading yesterday).
But in post-close trading, Meta’s stock price is now worth just $104.30 – raising fears for the worst by Wall Street’s close on Thursday and for the following days. In 2021, Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune peaked at $134.5 billion. But, to date, in 2022, the entrepreneur was only worth $49.8 billion. A figure that could drop sharply in the coming weeks.
Meta is, of course, faced with a deleterious economic context for GAFAM: between the new protective rules for privacy imposed by Apple (which limit tracking and advertising targeting which boosted the added value of campaigns) and the general economic slowdown which hits Big Tech (advertisers offer fewer impressions), the firm already has a huge challenge to address in the short term.
But it is above all the risky bet of Mark Zuckerberg around the Metaverse which is struggling to convince both investors and users. As the project mobilizes a lot (too much?) of resources, concerns accumulate around the entrepreneur’s strategy. The correction could therefore continue by directly attacking the founder of the social network in the wallet.
