After the Meta stock shock, Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani are wealthier than Mark Zuckerberg

*Paromita Das 

Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, two billionaire industrialists, are now wealthier than Mark Zuckerberg. This came after Zuckerberg’s net worth plummeted by USD 29 billion on 3 February 2022, as Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc’s stock hit a new all-time low.

Following the loss of USD 29 billion,

According to a Reuters article, he is listed below, as the chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd, and the founder of the Adani Group, on Forbes’ list of real-time billionaires.

The highest single-day market value wipe-out for a US corporation was 26%, wiping out more than USD 200 billion. According to Forbes, this lowered Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth to USD 85 billion.

 

THE LARGEST SINGLE-DAY DECLINE

Meta shares, which hold Facebook, have experienced the largest single-day drop in history.

Zuckerberg’s one-day wealth loss is one of the largest in history, and it follows Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk’s USD 35 billion single-day paper loss in November. Musk, the world’s richest man, has then polled Twitter users on whether he should sell 10% of his ownership in Tesla. Tesla’s stock has failed to fully recover from the ensuing sell-off.

Last year, before the tech meltdown in 2021, Zuckerberg sold USD 4.47 billion worth of Meta shares. The stock sales were part of a pre-determined 10b5-1 trading plan, which executives employ to alleviate insider trading concerns.

After the social media behemoth issued a bleak prediction, blaming Apple Inc’s privacy reforms and greater competition, shares of Facebook owner Meta dropped 26% on 3 February 2022, the largest single-day drop in market value for a US corporation.

 

The massive collapse, which erased over $200 billion off Meta’s market capitalization and about $29 billion from Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth, dragged the Nasdaq Composite Index lower. According to a Reuters study of Refinitiv data, it was the largest drop in market value for a public corporation in the United States.

It was the company’s largest single-day loss since its initial public offering in 2012.

Investors expect policy tightening at the US Federal Reserve will erode the industry’s lofty valuations after years of ultra-low interest rates, putting pressure on big US tech-focused corporations in 2022. In January, the Nasdaq, which is dominated by technology and other growth stocks, plunged more than 9%, its largest monthly drop since the coronavirus-induced market crash in March 2020.

As rivalry with rivals like TikTok, the video sharing platform owned by China’s ByteDance, heats up, Meta reported a drop in daily active users from the previous quarter for the first time.

The disappointment with Meta’s earnings and ensuing stock drop brought back memories of the 2000 tech bubble crash.

Following the sector’s recent record-breaking run, investors appear to be getting choosier.

According to research firm Vanda, retail investors focused their purchases in late 2020 and early 2021 on costly tech, electric vehicles, and so-called “meme” stocks.

Twitter, Pinterest, and Spotify were among the other social media stocks that took a beating on Thursday. Spotify has been embroiled in a controversy concerning COVID-19 vaccine disinformation, as well as releasing unsatisfactory results. Meanwhile, after Amazon’s record earnings, billionaire Jeff Bezos’ personal worth is expected to rise by USD 20 billion.

According to Refinitiv data, Bezos, the founder and chairman of e-commerce store Amazon, owns around 9.9% of the company. According to Forbes, he is also the world’s third richest man.