Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani richer than Mark Zuckerberg after Meta stock loss

Indian business tycoons Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani are now wealthier than Mark Zuckerberg, according to Forbes' Real-Time Billionaires List, after Facebook parent company Meta's stock plunged on Thursday.

Zuckerberg lost $29 billion in net worth after Meta's stock plunged by 26 per cent. In total, his net worth is $85 billion, while Adani's stands at $90.1 billion and Ambani's is $90 billion.

According to AP, the decline could partly be tied to Meta’s spending on its Reality Labs segment - which includes its virtual reality headsets and augmented reality technology. Meta invested more than $10 billion in the segment in 2021.

In addition, recent privacy changes by Apple make it harder for companies like Meta to track people for advertising purposes, which also puts pressure on the company’s revenue.

On a conference call with analysts on Wednesday, Meta’s chief financial said the company faced a $10 billion “headwind” from Apple’s changes in 2022. Analysts at MoffettNathanson, in a note to clients, called the estimate “stunning.”

The dip in Meta's stocks comes after Tesla CEO Elon Musk's $35 billion single-day paper loss in November 2021, which had displaced him on Forbes' list. Tesla's shares have yet to recover from the sell-off that came after.

However, Jeff Bezos' Amazon Inc. saw a surge in holiday-quarter profits, according to a report from Reuters.

Bezos, who occupies the third spot in the Forbes list, made a set of insightful financial moves, such as investing in Rivian, an electric vehicle company, and hiking the annual prices of Amazon Prime subscriptions in the United States, which saw its shares shoot up by 15 per cent in extended trading. This is set to be one of Amazon Inc.'s biggest percentage gains since October 2009.

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A Bloomberg report stated that numerous analysts pointed out how the stiff competition that Meta now faced from its rivals, as well as its revenue problems, were serious causes for concern. Michael Nathanson, an analyst at the brokerage Moffett Nathanson, titled his note “Facebook: The Beginning of the End?”

“These cuts run deep,” he wrote. The results were “a headline grabber and not in a good way."

Meta “finds itself in the middle of a perfect storm,” wrote Youssef Squali, an analyst at Truist Securities. Meta’s market cap as of Wednesday’s close stood at roughly $900 billion.

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