Tech mogul Mark Zuckerberg lost $5 billion of his wealth tied to Meta stocks on 6 November, after shares dropped by 2.3% on reports that internal projections peg a “chunk” of the company’s revenues to come from running advertisements for scams, Forbes reported.

As a result, Mark Zuckerberg, who throughout the year has been the third richest person in the world after Tesla chief Elon Musk and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, lost $5 billion of his net worth due to the stock drop on 6 November.

Notably, Mark Zuckerberg holds around 13% of Meta shares. He has now dropped out of the top 5 richest people in the world.

How much did Mark Zuckerberg drop in billionaire rankings?

Before Meta’s stock price moved, 41-year-old Mark Zuckerberg was the third-richest person in the world. After today’s drop, he is now behind Elon Musk ($496.5 billion), Larry Ellison ($298.8 billion), Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ($257 billion), and Google co-founders Larry Page ($235 billion) and Sergey Brin ($217.9 billion).

The Forbes Real-time Billionaires list showed the Meta Platforms co-founder in sixth place, with a net worth of $212.5 billion, down $5.6 billion or 2.57% at the time of writing, at 10:46 PM IST on 6 November.

Meta stock drops 2.3% — Why?

According to the Forbes report, Meta stock slipped 2.3% to around $620.75 in the morning on 6 November. This adds to the nearly 17.5% drop in stock value over the past week for the company, including when it posted Q3 earnings. The single-day drop was over 11% on Q3 earnings day, it added.

The stock drop on 6 November occurred after Reuters reported that Meta’s internal documents had projected that as much as 10% of its advertising revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods. The report estimated the company’s revenue at around $16 billion, representing 10% of the total.

Speaking to Reuters, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the agency’s report “presents a selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams,” adding that the company’s internal estimates were lower and that the 10 per cent estimate included “many” legitimate ads.”

He did not provide Reuters with any updated figures and did not respond to Forbes’ queries, the report added.

The Reuters report added that other documents also showed that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (US SEC) is scrutinising Meta for running ads for financial scams. As per a Forbes report, citing UK regulatory authorities, Meta’s products were involved in 54 per cent of all payment-related scam losses in 2023 — more than double that of all other social media sites combined.

(With inputs from Agencies)