Mark Zuckerberg’s personal fortune plummeted by more than $7 billion in a matter of hours after a whistleblower came out and outages took Facebook Inc.’s major programmes down, knocking him down a rung on the list of the world’s richest people. The social media behemoth’s stock plummeted more than 5% on Monday, extending its overall loss to roughly 15% since mid-September.
In these circumstances, Zuckerberg’s colossal loss may not appear so colossal. Nonetheless, it has pushed him down the list of the world’s wealthiest individuals, and it comes in the aftermath of a whistleblower’s claims about the company’s behaviour, which have already caused havoc.
The Wall Street Journal started publication a series of stories on September 13 predicated on a cache of internal documents, revealing that Facebook was aware of a variety of issues with its products — such as Instagram’s negative impact on teen girls’ mental health and misrepresentation about the January 6 Capitol riots — while downplaying the issues in public.
The reports drew the attention of government authorities, and the whistleblower came forward on Monday. Facebook has responded by emphasising that the challenges confronting its products, such as political polarisation, are multifaceted and not only due to technological factors.
