Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth has declined by more than 60% from its high of $130 billion in September 2021 to $47.2 billion at the market’s close Wednesday, Forbes reports.
Meta (META) stock fell by 11% in after-hours trading Wednesday as it reported third-quarter net income had cratered by 49% year-over-year to $4.4 billion, or $1.64 per share. On Thursday, the stock was down another 24% as of 2:15 p.m. EST.
Bank of America analyst Justin Post downgraded META to neutral, saying its metaverse virtual reality investment “will remain (an) overhang” on the stock. It is estimated to cost Meta $10.7 billion in 2023.
On the earnings call, Zuckerberg said that due to the fact it is “not clear the economy has stabilized yet,” Meta will budget “somewhat more conservatively.”
Meta employed 87,300 people at the end of September, up 28% from the previous year.
As Zuckerberg stated in September when he told Meta employees that he was imposing a hiring freeze on the company and restructuring some teams, he reiterated on the earnings call, “In 2023, we’re going to focus our investments on a small number of high-priority growth areas. So, that means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year.”
Meta has been struggling over privacy changes that Apple made in 2021 that have curtailed its ability to target users with advertisements, as well as growing competition from TikTok, which Zuckerberg calls a “very effective competitor.”