Mark Zuckerberg's net worth plunges by $30 billion as Facebook parent Meta crashes 25% after earnings shock

• Mark Zuckerberg's net worth plunged by roughly $30 billion Thursday, after Facebook posted weak earnings.
• Facebook, now called Meta, dropped 25% in early trading after earnings and forecasts came in lower than expected.

Mark Zuckerberg's net worth has plunged by roughly $30 billion after Facebook stock crashed 25%, with investors exiting in droves after a worse-than-expected earnings report.

Meta, formerly Facebook, said late Wednesday that rivals such as TikTok were eating into its revenues and that user numbers on the social media site had fallen for the first time on record.

Shares in the company plummeted 25% in early trading Thursday to $243.82. The drop cut Meta's market capitalization by around $230 billion, putting it on track for the biggest one-day valuation wipeout in US corporate history.

It also slashed roughly $30 billion from Mark Zuckerberg's fortune, which slid to around $92 billion, from just over $121 billion on Wednesday.

If the stock's slide is sustained, Zuckerberg will likely fall out of the list of the world's 10 richest people for the first time since 2015, according to data from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

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To be sure, Zuckerberg is still considerably wealthier than he was before the coronavirus pandemic began in February 2020, when his net worth stood at around $77 billion. He derives almost all of his wealth from a 14% stake in Meta.

Huge amounts of monetary and fiscal stimulus have sent asset prices, particularly Big Tech stocks, soaring.

Zuckerberg's net worth peaked at above $140 billion in September 2021, but a general pivot away from tech stocks towards more economically sensitive companies has since brought it down.

The 10 richest men in the world more than doubled their wealth during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic as asset prices shot higher, according to Oxfam.

The charity said in mid-January that the top 10 richest had six times more wealth than the poorest 3.1 billion people on the planet.