Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg saw $18 billion of his net worth disappear on Thursday, after the company's steep stock slide.Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks about the Facebook News feature at the Paley Center For Media in New York on Oct. 25, 2019.of dollars investing in areas like artificial intelligence and the metaverse, even though Meta counts 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 aren't yet monetizing it," Zuckerberg said on the call. Zuckerberg owns around 345 million Class A and B shares. With the stock falling by $52.12 on Thursday, the value of his stake sank by about $18 billion to $152 billion by the close 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 the non-existent metaverse.Meta said it plans to spend $35 billion to $40 billion Meta on capital expenditures this year, an increase from its prior forecast.
Zuckerberg's fortune has swung up and down through the years, as his company's stock has been particularly volatile. His net worth fell by around $100 billion in 2022. In early 2023, he announced Meta would embark on a "year of efficiency," a move that helped the stock price triple for the year, and bringing Zuckerberg's net worth up with it.