Google News Mark Zuckerberg has lost more than half of his fortune over the past year
by FARUK IMAMOVIC | VIEW 186
Another rather impressive - if unfortunate - feat from Mark Zuckerberg. Despite the fact that the end of 2022 is three months away, the founder of Facebook and Meta has already lost more than half of his fortune. And only this year.
So far, Zuckerberg has seen $71 billion disappear from his net worth since January 1, according to a Bloomberg report. That's the biggest loss recorded by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index among the tycoons it tracks, in which Zuckerberg now ranks 20th, with $55.9 billion.
Keep in mind that Zuckerberg had a whopping $142 billion just a year ago. Compared to the beginning of the year, Zuckerberg fell 14 places on Bloomberg's list and is now at the lowest position he has held since 2014 when the "dark" effects of the social network Facebook on democracy were not yet established.
The entrepreneur himself seems to attribute much of the loss to the restructuring of much of Facebook into Meta, with the goal of dominating the Metaverse. However, after the change in October 2021, the company's earnings reports were glowing, to say the least.
The following February, however, Facebook reported zero growth in monthly users, and Zuckerberg lost $31 billion in one day.
Advertising problems
“Facebook makes most of its money from advertising, and now it just doesn’t have that data anymore,” says Mark Zgutowicz, an analyst at research and investment banking firm Benchmark.
“All those data signals went away, which basically means that advertisers are having trouble telling whether a campaign was successful or not." Meta's poor performance seems to be due to many other factors as well.
Instagram Reels, the platform's answer to TikTok, didn't deliver the advertising revenue they expected, and many users simply turned to the original video-sharing platform instead of using Insta's copy feature. Pushing into the Metaverse, meanwhile, by definition translates into losing money, at least for a while.
Zuckerberg himself has admitted that the project will lose "significant amounts of money" over the next three to five years, Bloomberg noted. While Zuckerberg certainly isn't feeling comfortable right now, he can at least take solace in the idea that he's not alone.
Several tech billionaires have lost huge sums this year. Jeff Bezos' wealth decreased by 46 billion dollars, while Larry Page from the company Google recorded a loss of 34 billion dollars.
