Zuckerberg Loses Billions as Facebook Sheds Users for the FIRST TIME Ever

Facebook is in big trouble.

In addition to the ongoing criticism from conservatives who believe the social media site is biased against them, parent company Meta is also weathering a harsh backlash from liberals.

It all adds up to a loss of billions for the company and its controversial founder, Mark Zuckerberg.

Although some critics have predicted Facebook’s downfall before, the platform — and its audience — just seemed to keep growing.

That appears to have all changed now.

You see, Facebook has just recorded its first ever quarterly drop in daily users.

The news caused great concern for investors and cost Zuckerberg a pretty penny.

As the Wall Street Journal reported:

Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. startled investors with a sharper-than-expected decline in profits and a gloomy outlook in its first earnings report since Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg outlined a pivot to the metaverse.

Meta shares plunged after the results were announced, dropping more than 20%. If shares dropped that much when trading opens on Thursday, it would wipe more than $175 billion from the tech giant’s market capitalization.

While this is clearly bad news for the company and its many employees worldwide, Zuckerberg was hit especially hard.

As the future of his company hangs in the balance, he also has to contend with the massive hit to his personal portfolio.

He is, after all, the single largest shareholder of the social media company, as Investopedia reported:

Zuckerberg is Meta’s largest shareholder by far. As mentioned, he co-founded Meta, then called Facebook, and has been the company’s longtime chair and chief executive officer (CEO).13 At the age of 36, Zuckerberg is also ranked fifth on the Forbes World’s Billionaires List with a net worth of $97 billion.14 He currently holds more than 398 million shares of Meta, which constitutes 16.7% of all outstanding shares, according to a 13G filing for the period ending Dec. 31, 2020.12

The latest bad news for Meta and its CEO led to some celebration by a wide array of social media users.

Okay, let’s be honest. Who was HAPPY to learn that Mark Zuckerberg lost $24 BILLION today in net worth when his Meta stock PLUMMETED 22% in after-hours trading?

— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) February 3, 2022

Facebook has lost $230 billion of market cap today.

How’s your Thursday going?

— Amy Siskind 🏳️‍🌈 (@Amy_Siskind) February 3, 2022

Best news I’ve heard this year #DeleteFacebook https://t.co/yl72aldvcY

— Dennis B (@dennisb5) February 3, 2022

Some users put the massive loss in perspective.

Facebook has lost more value today ($240b-ish) than almost all global companies have ever been worth, at any time, in their histories.

— Alex Sherman (@sherman4949) February 3, 2022

At least one of Facebook’s conservative rivals was apparently rejoicing.

Facebook is absolutely tanking right now pic.twitter.com/S8JNexGVnw

— Gab.com (@getongab) February 3, 2022

Zuckerberg tried to change the name of his company in hopes that disillusioned users would forget why they were starting to despise the company.

He also tried to explain the bad news, as Axios explained:

On a call with investors, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said there’s been a shift of engagement within its apps towards video products like Reels. Those products are harder for the company to monetize compared to other video products in the News Feed and in Stories (strings of video and text).

Zuckerberg also conceded that the company expects continued headwinds from increased competition for people’s time, citing TikTok as a big competitor to Reels.

His strategy clearly did not work.

Here is a clip of Zuckerberg awkwardly introducing the world to his renamed brand.

Do you want to see Facebook/Meta go bankrupt?