According to Bloomberg, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s personal wealth has dropped by nearly $7 billion in the last few hours as a result of a whistleblower coming forward and global outages for Facebook and its flagship products.
Bloomberg reports that “a selloff sent the social-media giant’s stock plummeting around 5% on Monday, adding to a drop of about 15% since mid-September.”
Zuckerberg’s net worth has now dropped to $120.9 billion, putting him fifth on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index behind Bill Gates. “He has lost approximately $19 billion in wealth since September 13, when he was valued at nearly $140 billion.”
On Sept. 13, the Wall Street Journal began publishing a series of stories based on a cache of internal documents, revealing that Facebook was aware of a wide range of problems with its products — such as Instagram’s harm to teenage girls’ mental health and misinformation about the Jan. 6 Capitol riots — while downplaying the issues in public. The reports have drawn the attention of government officials, and on Monday, the whistleblower revealed herself.
In response, Facebook has emphasized that the issues confronting its products, such as political polarization, are complex and not solely the result of technology.
Meanwhile, the world’s five wealthiest people are worth a combined $795 billion are,
| Rank | Net Worth |
| 1. Elon Musk | $210.6 Billion |
| 2. Jeff Bezos | $185.7 Billion |
| 3. Bernard Arnault | $153.3 Billion |
| 4. Bill Gates | $124.0 Billion |
| 5. Mark Zuckerberg | $121.6 Billion |
As of Oct. 4, 2021