Mark Zuckerberg’s Net Worth Has Dropped $10 Billion in the Last Week
Massive data leak continues to hit Facebook chief exec’s wallet
Sean Burch | March 23, 2018 @ 1:02 PM
Last Updated: March 23, 2018 @ 1:11 PM
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Mark Zuckerberg isn’t exactly waiting around for his tax return, but it’s been a rough financial week for the Facebook chief exec nonetheless. The CEO’s net worth has dropped more than $10 billion in the last week as Facebook stock has fallen 14 percent in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data leak.
Shares of the social network continued their week-long slide on Friday, slumping 3.3 percent to $159.45 per share. That’s down from $185.09 at the close-of-bell last Friday, before the scandal broke about 50 million users having their information unwittingly accessed.
As Facebook has lost $60 billion in market cap, Zuckerberg has went from “extremely wealthy” to “slightly less extremely wealthy,” with his have lost $10.1 billion in value in the past week.
The 33-year-old exec, who holds roughly 393.1 million shares of company stock, is now worth “only” $62.7 billion — dropping him from fifth to seventh place on Forbes’ billionaire rankings. You can send your cash donations to 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, CA, 94025, if you’re inclined.
Facebook has faced mounting criticism over the data leak, both from users and advertisers. The #DeleteFacebook hashtag gained steam this week on Twitter, with WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton and Tesla chief exec Elon Musk joining in. At the same time, advertisers have started to question their relationship with the second biggest ad business on the internet.
Facebook opened 2018 trading at about $180 a share, and pushed to its all-time high of $195 a share in early February.
Investors will get a look at whether a major segment of users are ditching the platform when Facebook reports its quarterly earnings later this spring.
6 Tech Giants Shaking Up News, From Jeff Bezos to Laurene Powell Jobs (Photos)
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.
Jeff Bezos – Washington Post
The Amazon founder purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million in cash. President Trump has called the paper the “Amazon Washington Post.”
The Facebook co-founder purchased The New Republic in 2012, becoming executive chairman and publisher. However, he sold the venerable political magazine to Win McCormack in 2016, saying he "underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate."
The eBay founder is a well-known philanthropist who created First Look Media, a journalism venture behind The Intercept. Inspired by Edward Snowden's leaks. Omidyar teamed up with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras to launch the website “dedicated to the kind of reporting those disclosures required: fearless, adversarial journalism.”
The PayPal co-founder doesn’t own a news organization, but he makes this list because he essentially ended one -- Gawker -- proving once again the power of an angry billionaire. Thiel secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit against Gawker Media because he was upset that the website once outed him as gay. Hogan won the defamation lawsuit against the site that sent its parent company into bankruptcy, and Gawker.com is no longer operating.
OK, so Facebook isn’t technically a news organization… yet. However, the company is preparing to launch its much-anticipated lineup of original content later this summer, and there are also signs that it's on the verge of becoming an even bigger media platform.
Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships at Facebook, confirmed last week it’s developing a subscription service for publishers willing to post articles directly to Facebook Instant Articles, rather than their native websites.
Tech is increasingly intertwined with news, for better or worse
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.