Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth is down $18 billion on Meta’s revenue

Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth dropped $18 billion on Thursday after comments from Meta The company’s CEO’s earnings call sent its stock to its steepest decline since October 2022.

Meta beat revenue and profit expectations, but provided a lighter-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 the metaverse, even though Meta relies on advertising for 98% of its revenue.

“Historically, we’ve seen a lot of volatility in our stock during this phase of our product pipeline when we’re investing in scaling a new product but not yet monetizing it,” Zuckerberg said on the call.

Zuckerberg owns about 345 million shares of Class A and Class B shares. After the stock fell $52.12 on Thursday, the value of his stake sank about $18 billion to $152 billion by late 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 defunct meta universe.

Meta’s Reality Labs division, which houses the hardware and software to develop the metaverse, has reported cumulative losses of $45 billion since 2020, when the company first separated the unit in its financial statements.

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 fortunes have been up and down over the years, as his company’s stock has been particularly volatile. His net worth fell by about $100 billion in 2022. In early 2023, he announced that Meta would embark on a “year of performance,” a move that helped the stock price triple for the year, leading to a net Zuckerberg status.

Thursday wasn’t the worst day for Zuckerberg’s bank account. In early 2022, he lost almost $30 billion in a single day when his company’s stock price fell 26% on weak earnings and disappointing guidance.

WATCHING: Meta’s AI venture is a good long-term investment