How Mark Zuckerberg has lost more than half of his fortune in just one year

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg lost more than half his fortune which is $76.8 billion since September 2021. Following this, he dropped from No. 3 on The Forbes 400 list of the U.S.’ wealthiest people to No. 11. And, since 2015, this is the first time when Zuckerberg hasn't been featured in the top 10 list. 

Currently, his total net worth is $57.7 billion, as per the list, and he is trailing behind Walmart heir Jim Walton, Michael Bloomberg, ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Zuckerberg first became a billionaire in 2008, just four years after founding Facebook. At 23, he was the youngest self-made billionaire at the time, debuting at No. 321 on The Forbes 400, worth $1.5 billion. By 2011, Zuckerberg’s net worth had increased nearly 12 fold to $17.5 billion.

Since September 3, 2021, when last year’s Forbes 400 was released, the shares of Meta have plunged 57%. Tech stocks are generally in a slump with the market downturn, but Meta’s fall outpaces both the Nasdaq (-9.8%) and the S&P 500 (-13.5%), as well as Microsoft’s 14% decline, Google-parent Alphabet‘s 25% drop and Amazon’s 27% dive.

Investors are spooked by a privacy policy update from Apple last year that made it harder for tech companies to track users across apps, impacting Meta’s ad sales. Meta reported its first-ever quarterly revenue decline in July–a 1% drop, to $28.8 billion, a Forbes report stated. 

Topping this, a large chunk of advertisers and lucrative Gen Z and millennial users were lured by TikTok. n February, Meta announced its first-ever quarterly loss of daily active users. And as per reports, Meta’s TikTok clone, Instagram Reels, is struggling to compete

Under normal circumstances, a slight dip in revenue might be manageable, but Meta is also investing heavily in virtual reality and the metaverse, which is dragging down operating profit. 

Will Zuckerberg bounce back? 

This isn't the first time Zuckerberg is facing such a crisis. In 2012, following Facebook's disappointing IPO plan, Zuckerberg fell from No. 14 to No. 36 on the same list. But the very next year, Zuckerberg bounced back.

“Despite the litany of controversies and scandals plaguing the company, Facebook’s ad machine had reliably churned out enough money to impress investors, sending Zuckerberg’s net worth soaring to $134.5 billion last year, his highest net worth ever,” the article said