Silicon Valley founders and CEOs have had a rough year so far, losing billions of dollars in net worth.
Technology company billionaires make up 6 of the top 10 biggest losers so far this year, with losses approaching a quarter of a trillion dollars for the group.
Leading this dubious list is Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, now called Meta Platforms (META). Zuckerberg is down by a massive $70.8 billion, or 56%, so far this year.
But have no fears, he still ranks as the 20th richest billionaire as of Sept. 18, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Zuckerberg, who is only 38 years old, is still worth $54.7 billion, outranking Michael Dell of the namesake PC company and Changpen Zao, founder of Binance.com, the largest cryptocurrency trading platform in the world in terms of trading volume.
Zuckerberg is not the only tech tycoon having a tough year. Jeff Bezos recently lost his title of the world's second richest man to Indian tycoon Gautam Adani.
Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of tech and online-retail giant Amazon (AMZN) fell to the number three spot at 10:38 a.m EST on Sept. 16.
He had a fortune estimated at $145.8 billion compared with $146.9 billion for Adani who ended the day with a fortune of $147 billion.
The day started with Adani at No. 3 and Bezos at No. 2.
Meta has faced some challenges in 2022, similar to other tech companies. Shareholders have been impatient and the stock has fallen 56.4% year-to-date, losing $70.8 billion in valuation.
The social media company that operates Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is among companies that lost tens of billions of dollars in market cap during the trading week ending Sept. 16.
A little over a year ago Facebook joined the prestigious club of companies worth at least $1 trillion with a market cap of $1.078 trillion set on Sept. 7, 2021.
In July, Facebook announced its first quarterly revenue decline since going public in 2012.
Competition from TikTok, the short video platform company, has been fierce and could be stealing market share from Facebook, which had 2.93 billion monthly active users as of June 30.
The economic slowdown and a probable recession also have pressured the company's bottom line, which is supported by advertising.
Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, signed the Giving Pledge in 2015 to commit to donating the majority of their massive wealth, along with Bill Gates, founder and former CEO of Microsoft (MSFT) and Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A) CEO Warren Buffett. The Giving Pledge was created by Buffett, Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates.
