Mark Zuckerberg loses US$4.9 billion as Facebook shares slump in face of Cambridge Analytica data debacle
The drop in stock came as a US senator demanded the company answer questions about how 50 million of its users has lost their data to the political consultancy
Mark Zuckerberg lost US$4.9 billion of his fortune on Monday as Facebook shares tumbled in the wake of reports that political advertising firm Cambridge Analytica took and kept information on as many as 50 million of the site’s users without their consent.
Facebook shares fell 6.8 per cent to US$172.56, cutting Zuckerberg’s fortune to US$70.4 billion and wiping out all of the year’s gains so far. That marked the biggest intraday drop since August 2015.
Zuckerberg is now fifth on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, behind Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Amancio Ortega.
But other tech billionaires didn’t get away unscathed, as tech stocks suffered across the board, with Amazon’s Bezos losing US$2.1 billion and Alphabet Inc. founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin each losing US$1.5 billion.
Also on Monday, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden has written to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to demand answers to burning questions regarding its policies for sharing user data with third parties.
Wyden, an influential senator on technology issues, wants to know Facebook’s role in the incident and its overall awareness of third-party collection practices, including why it did not suspend Cambridge Analytica in 2015, when it first became aware of its actions.