Mark Zuckerberg is sure that the metaverse is the future of human interconnections… but apparently the world is not ready for his vision. Since the creator of Facebook announced the change of his company’s name to Meta and his future plans, he has lost more than 50% of his fortune.
According to information from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Mark Zuckerberg lost 14 places in the list of the richest in the world over the past 8 months, moving from 6th place to 20th. Zuckerberg has had a loss of $14 MMDD, which represents the most drastic drop of anyone on that list, surpassing even Jeff Bezos, who lost $46 MMDD and incidentally the 2nd. place.
Bloomberg Billionaires Index
At some point, the creator of Facebook became the third richest man in the world, behind only Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. But now, Zuckerberg must be content with a fortune of $55 MMDD and the twentieth place, the lowest he has had since 2014.
There are several factors that led to this situation. First of all, there is the very strong investment that Meta is making in research to develop the promised metaverse. In 2021, the company invested more than $10 MILLION, but net losses are expected to last at least 3-5 years.
Another important reason is that Facebook is simply not what it used to be: fewer and fewer people are using the app, so ad revenue is lower. In the same way there is the great threat that TikTok represents; and although Instagram has evolved with the Reels as a response, again the advertising revenues in that type of content are lower.
Will Zuckerberg decide to change his strategy to recover the status quo a little or will he really be willing to risk everything for the metaverse?
