Mark Zuckerberg drops three places in World Richest ranking
Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg has dropped down three places in the World Richest ranking, after seeing his stock plunge by over 20 per cent.
Reuters reports that Zuckerberg lost $17.6bn in net worth after Wednesday’s disappointing earnings report.
The 34-year-old Facebook billionaire now has a net worth of about $68.9bn, a significant drop from a previous $86.5bn net worth.
That figure includes some $2.7bn in cash and real estate, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire index.
Zuckerberg, who had been the world’s third-richest person, is now below Warren Buffett, French business magnate Bernard Arnault, and Zara founder Amancio Ortega, at number six.
The Facebook CEO’s net worth had surpassed Buffett’s in June as shares of the social app continued to climb and Buffett continued to give much of his wealth away in charitable donations. Today, Buffett is worth roughly about $82.3bn.
Zuckerberg is Facebook’s largest shareholder, with 12.8 percent of its shares outstanding. His losses come after Facebook revealed mixed earnings and slowing growth during the second quarter of 2018.
During the quarter, the company added 22 million daily active users, lower than the 41 million it added in the same quarter a year earlier.
Chief financial officer, David Wehner, told analysts in a follow-up call to brace for a possibly deeper slowdown as the company seeks to expand new offerings such as Stories and increase privacy and security for users.
Facebook’s second-quarter results were the first sign that a new European privacy law and a string of privacy scandals involving Cambridge Analytica and other app developers are hitting the company’s business.
