Mark Zuckerberg's Lost Half His Net Worth & He's Falling Fast On The Billionaire List

If you run into Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg in the Metaverse, you might want to give him a virtual hug as he deals with all the billions of dollars he's lost.

That is, if you're using the Metaverse at all.

New numbers from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, show that the company's value is falling fast, even as it tries to make the Metaverse happen.

And who owns the biggest single chunk of Facebook stock?

Mark Zuckerberg, of course.

Zuckerberg used to be one of the five richest people on the planet, but Forbes reports that he's taken a huge hit to his net worth over the last year or so.

Zuck was worth about $130 billion when Meta/Facebook was at its peak value in September 2021, Forbes reports. However, his company and his own net worth have been struggling in the months since, particularly after Zuckerberg decided to double and triple down on the Metaverse as the future of his company.

That move hasn't paid off at this point, with Meta reporting that its Metaverse-focused branch, Reality Labs, has lost $9.4 billion this year so far. That's hurting the company's value, and it's hitting Zuckerberg's too.

According to Forbes' realtime tracker, Zuckerberg's net worth was at about $36.2 billion on Thursday afternoon, down from about $47 billion a day earlier. That means he's lost about two-thirds of his net worth since last year. He's also lost more than Kanye West did this week.

Ouch.

Zuckerberg was the third-richest man on the planet just a few years ago, but Forbes had him at No. 29 on the list on Thursday.

So what's a billionaire to do?

The 38-year-old seemed pretty convinced with his whole Metaverse thing when he talked to Facebook investors earlier this week.

"Look, I get that a lot of people might disagree with this investment, but from what I can tell, I think this is going to be a very important thing,” he told them, per The Verge. “People will look back a decade from now and talk about the importance of the work being done here.”

That, or they'll look back and talk about how Mark Zuckerberg lost most of his fortune because he kept trying to make "fetch" happen.

Time will tell!