Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks about the Facebook News feature at the Paley Center for Media in New York on October 25, 2019.
Drew Angerer | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Mark Zuckerberg's net worth fell by $18 billion on Thursday after comments from dead The CEO's earnings call sent his company's stock price to its biggest drop since October 2022.
Meta beat expectations in terms of revenue and profits but provided a lower-than-expected revenue forecast. Zuckerberg told investors that the company will continue to spend billions of dollars investing in areas such as artificial intelligence and metaverses, even though meta relies on advertising for 98% of its revenue.
“We've historically seen a lot of volatility in our stock during this phase of our product playbook where we're investing in scaling a new product but haven't yet monetized it,” Zuckerberg said on the call.
Zuckerberg owns about 345 million Class A and Class B shares. With the stock falling $52.12 on Thursday, the value of his stake fell by about $18 billion to $152 billion by the end of trading.
The 39-year-old programmer founded the company in his Harvard dorm room in 2004, and rebranded it from Facebook to Meta in 2021, signaling to investors his plan to focus on a nonexistent turnaround.
Meta's Reality Labs division, which houses hardware and software for metaverse development, has posted cumulative losses of $45 billion since 2020, when the company first separated the unit in its financials.
Meta said it plans to spend between $35 billion and $40 billion on capital expenditures this year, an increase from its previous forecast.
Zuckerberg's fortune has fluctuated up and down over the years, with his company's shares being particularly volatile. His net worth fell by about $100 billion in 2022. In early 2023, he announced that Meta would begin a “year of efficiency,” a move that helped the stock price three times this year, taking Zuckerberg's net worth along with it.
Thursday wasn't the worst day for Zuckerberg's bank account. In early 2022, he lost nearly $30 billion in a single day, when his company's stock price fell 26% due to weak earnings and disappointing guidance.
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