How much money did Mark Zuckerberg lose in 2022?

Mark Zuckerberg could not have predicted that 2022 would be a terrible year for him economically. The tech entrepreneur lost billions of dollars and had to fire thousands of employees from his company, Meta.

The CEO of Meta, formerly Facebook, is one of the wealthiest men in the world. However, he is falling lower on the list. According to Forbes, during the biggest downfall of Meta in the stock market, Zuckerberg went from being the 25th richest person in the world to the 29th in just one day in October.

Meta's stock price increased during the pandemic and peaked in 2021, which granted Zuckerberg a $136.4 billion fortune. According to Forbes, the tech entrepreneur is now worth $36 billion. He lost 11 billion during the October debacle and more than 100 billion of his fortune at its peak.

In Bloomberg's Billionaire Index, Zuckerberg has lost more than 20 positions in the past four years. In 2018, the CEO of Meta was in the third position on this chart, just below Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates ─both have lost places as well, but not more than four.

Zuckerberg's downfall has an explanation. The creation of the metaverse that his company is pursuing has proven to be more complicated than anticipated. Meta is also facing fierce competition from TikTok for advertising.

Zuckerberg has admitted that transitioning to the metaverse will take years, but his attempts to create it are falling short today. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company's flagship for consumers, Horizon Worlds, is "grappling with glitchy technology, uninterested users, and a lack of clarity about what it will take to succeed."

According to Bloomberg, Zuckerberg has admitted that his metaverse efforts will mean losing "significant" money in the next five years. Forbes assures that the division working on that project has lost $9.4 billion this year through September 30.

Meta shares fell 25% to $97.94 on October 27, 2022, after the company reported a 50% decline in profits. However, the stock lost 70% of its price since the beginning of this year, when it was over 300 dollars.

According to Forbes, Meta's stock price is at its lowest since December 2016.

In November, the company announced a layoff of 11,000 employees, 13% of the total workforce. According to Forbes, Zuckerberg took responsibility for this action in a memo: "I want to take accountability for these decisions and how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I'm especially sorry for those impacted." The CEO also announced a hiring freeze.

The CEO has asked for the patience of the investors. According to Bloomberg, he told the shareholders that the metaverse will eventually make money from a "creator economy, as people build businesses selling virtual goods and services."

Zuckerberg is confident that the metaverse project will succeed. According to Forbes, the day before the October debacle, during an earnings call, the CEO said: "Look, I get that a lot of people might disagree with this investment. But from what I can tell, I think that this is going to be a very important thing. It would be a mistake for us not to focus on any of these areas, which I think will be fundamentally important to the future."

While the future arrives, Meta has lost its position among Big Tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, according to CNBC, sixteen months after the company crossed the one trillion dollar market cap.

The company's stock worth has decreased a 74% since it peaked in September 2021, totaling over $730 billion in market cap loss, according to CNBC.

According to CNBC, Meta lost its spot as one of the top 20 most valuable U.S. companies. The tech company is now worth less than Home Depot and barely more than Pfizer and Coca-Cola.

Mark Zuckerberg's fortune depends almost exclusively on the success of Meta. He owns about 13% of the company's stock.

And it is that Mark Zuckerberg has more than 350 million shares of Meta. That is, if Meta falls, Mark Zuckerberg falls.