Lucas Nolan
Mark Zuckerberg’s insistence on pivoting Facebook (now known as Meta) to focus on a digital metaverse appears to be costing him dearly, with his fortune dropping by $71 billion, or about half his overall wealth, this year alone.
Bloomberg reports that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg may be regretting his pivot towards the metaverse as his fortune diminishes hugely. While every U.S. tech mogul has seen some of their wealth erased, Zuckerberg has been affected more than most with his fortune being cut in half dropping by $71 billion, the biggest loss among the world’s richest people according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Zuckerberg’s net worth of $55.9 billion now ranks him at the 20th spot among global billionaires, his lowest placement since 2014 behind three Waltons and two members of the Koch family.
Less than two years ago, Zuckerberg was worth $106 billion and ranked among an elite group of billionaires with only Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates placing above him in terms of personal wealth. In September 2021, Zuckerberg’s own worth reached $142 billion when Facebook shares reached as high as $382.
A month later, Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook as Meta and announced that the company would be focusing on building a digital metaverse. It has been largely downhill for Zuckerberg and the company since then as he fails to convince many that working, socializing, and living in a digital world via VR headsets is the future of the internet.
In February, Facebook revealed no growth in monthly users which triggered a historic collapse in its stock price and cut Zuckerberg’s fortune by $31 billion. Facebook’s app Instagram has also been attempting to bet on Reels, its TikTok competitor, despite it being worth less in advertising revenue and many users complaining about the app’s pivot towards video.
The company’s investment in the metaverse has also had a negative effect on stock price according to Laura Martin, senior internet analyst at Needham & Co. Zuckerberg himself has admitted that the project will lose a “significant” amount of money in the next three to five years.
Read more at Bloomberg here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan