CLOSE Facebook made history as the biggest one-day wipeout of stock market value for any U.S. company. The company's CEO Mark Zuckerberg took a personal hit of more than $15 billion just one day after the company said its growth is slowing. USA TODAY
File photo shows Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as he spoke during a press conference in Paris, France on May 23, 2018. (Photo: BERTRAND GUAY - AFP/Getty Images)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg lost more than $15 billion in stock wealth Thursday as investors dumped shares after the social network warned of slowing sales growth.
The massive one-day loss pushed the 34-year-old out of the top 5 in Forbes’ list of the world’s billionaires as he drops from the #4 spot to #6 with a net worth of $67 billion.
He now trails Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos ($149 billion), Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates ($95 billion), LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault ($84 billion), Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett ($83 billion) and Amancio Ortega ($72 billion), founder of retailing group Inditex.
Facebook shares plunged 19 percent Thursday to $176.26 as the company shed about $100 billion in market value.
It was the tech company’s largest stock drop ever and was the biggest stock-market wipeout for a U.S. company ever, according to Bloomberg.
Triggering the stock sell-off: The company said its sales growth would continue to slow through the rest of the year and cited higher expenses related to user security.
More: Why Facebook had its worst day ever (and yes, Cambridge Analytica is partly to blame)
More: Wipe out! Facebook sheds $120B in market value on fears about user growth
More: Facebook one-day loss is more than what these companies are worth
To keep things in perspective, Zuckerberg’s compensation at the tech company clocks in at about 37 times higher than the average Facebook employee, according to its 2017 proxy.
The median compensation for a Facebook employee was $240,000 in 2017, compared to Zuckerberg’s $8.85 million.
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zenpod on July 28th, 2018 at 13:23 UTC »
That's like 300,000 pounds in $100 dollar bills. He'll need fewer semi trucks to follow him around.
Reasonabledwarf on July 28th, 2018 at 13:07 UTC »
Valuating the primary shareholder in a major company by the current stock price is always going to be a sort of ridiculous way to tally their wealth; if they attempted to actually trade it for anything, they'd probably tank the stock price anyway. Oftentimes, that stock price is even partially a reflection of investor confidence in the individual in question. It's still the only reasonable way to represent someone's economic power and importance as judged by the market, sure, but headlines deliberately conflate wealth and liquidity, specifically to drive reader engagement.
Ecoste on July 28th, 2018 at 12:46 UTC »
Oh no, he only has $67 billion left