Mark Zuckerberg's wealth dropped to $71 billion this year: Report

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg's wealth has dropped by a whopping $71 billion this year, the maximum for a billionaire being ranked on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The Meta CEO now ranks 20th among global billionaires, the lowest spot since 2014, Bloomberg reported.

Less than two years ago, the 38-year-old Facebook co-founder was worth $106 billion and was in the elite group of global billionaires with only Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates commanding bigger fortunes. Zuckerberg's fortune rose to the peak of $142 billion in September last year, after the company's shares touched $382.

In October last year, Zuckerberg introduced Meta and renamed the company's name from Facebook Inc. Since, then the company has gone downhill, the Bloomberg report stated. In February, the company revealed it had witnessed no growth in monthly Facebook users resulting in massive collapse in its share prices and slashing the CEO's wealth by $31 billion.

According to Laura Martin, a senior internet analyst, the stock is being dragged down by Meta's investments in the metaverse. She added Meta has to get users back from TikTok, the prime competitor these days. Meta has fared worse in 2022 than most of the FAANG peers. FAANG is an acronym to denote Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google. It's down about 57 per cent this year, the Bloomberg report stated.

According to report, Zuckerberg holds more than 350 million shares in Meta as per the company's proxy statement. Zuckerberg has attempted a rebranding of sorts. He recently uploaded a video of himself practicing mixed martial arts and repeatedly referred to himself as a "product designer" in a three-hour conversation on Joe Rogan's podcast.