As Meta stock prices fell, Zuckerberg’s net worth dropped by more than $18 billion

The company’s net worth dropped $18 billion on Thursday after Mark Zuckerberg’s comments Yuan The CEO’s earnings call sent the company’s stock price to its biggest decline since October 2022.

Yuan hopes past revenue and profit, but revenue forecasts were lower than expected. Zuckerberg told investors the company will continue to spend billions. Although 98% of Mater’s revenue comes from advertising, it still invests a lot of money in areas such as artificial intelligence and Metaverse.

“At this point in our product strategy, our stock has historically experienced a lot of volatility and we’re investing in scaling new products but not yet monetizing them,” Zuckerberg said on the call.

Zuckerberg owns about 345 million Class A and Class B shares. As the stock fell to $52.12 on Thursday, the value of its shares fell nearly $18 billion to $152 billion in late trading.

The 39-year-old programmer founded the company in his Harvard dorm room in 2004 and renamed it Meta from Facebook in 2021, signaling to investors that he plans to focus on the nonexistent virtual universe.

Matter Reality Labs, the division responsible for Metaverse’s hardware and software development, revealed a cumulative loss of US$45 billion in 2020 after the company first separated the unit in its financing.

Meta said it plans to spend $35 billion to $40 billion on capital expenditures this year, an increase from its previous forecast.

Zuckerberg’s fortunes have fluctuated over the years as his company’s stock has been particularly volatile. In 2022, his net worth was reduced to about $100 billion. In early 2023, he announced that Meta would begin a “year of efficiency,” a move that helped triple the stock price and Zuckerberg’s net worth that year.

Thursday wasn’t the worst day for Zuckerberg’s bank account. At the start of 2022, he lost nearly $30 billion as his company’s stock price fell 26% in one day due to weak earnings and disappointing guidance.

Watch: The Mater AI project is a long-term investment