Mark Zuckerberg recently told podcaster Joe Rogan that every morning feels good “Punch in the stomach” because of “millions of messages” he wakes up. But lately, he may be feeling worse as his personal wealth has dropped dramatically.
Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook Meta parents, down 14 positions on the list of the richest people in the world, according to Bloomberg Billionaire Index. He is currently the 20th richest person with a total net worth of $55.3 billion – down $70.2 billion year-on-year as of Monday due to a sharp drop in Meta’s share price.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Microsoft Bill Gates founders are all in the top 5 richest people, but they are not without their financial losses. Those numbers are smaller than Zuckerberg’s, though, with Musk (#1 on the list of the richest people) losing $2.55 billion last year, Bezos (#3) losing $44.4 billion, and Gates (number 5) lost $26.2 billion. .
It should come as no surprise that tech stock prices have fallen over the past year due to the recession. The paper wealth of many tech giants is tied to the huge stakes they still hold in the companies they founded.
Zuckerberg’s fortune peaked at around $140 billion in September 2021. A month later, he announced Facebook’s rebranding to Meta to emphasize the shift in focus to the “metaverse,” a kind of technical world. numbers in virtual and augmented reality. It was around that time that his fortune began to decline.
In February, Meta stocks down nearly 23% after unexpected spending on its “metaverse” led to a drop in Q4 profit, alongside a lower-than-expected revenue outlook, amid its growing competition with TikTok.
Meta has tried to compete with TikTok’s rise in short video clips by pushing Reels, its own video service, on both Instagram and Facebook. However, some online influencers, like Kylie Jenner, don’t like the changes that Zuckerberg and his team are making.
In July, Meta reported its first quarterly decrease in revenue year-over-year, shortly after reporting the first drop in daily Facebook users.
Zuckerberg’s drop in fortune doesn’t seem to have completely discouraged him from the metaverse. For almost three hours his appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience in August, Zuckerberg said that he thinks the metaverse will probably be “So much healthier” for everyone – reiterates his belief that it is the next generation of the Internet.
“My goal for these next platforms is to be more diverse and hopefully more useful — but I don’t necessarily want people to spend more time with computers,” he said. with Rogan. “I just want the screen time people spend to get better.”
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