Mark Zuckerberg began 2022 as the 6th richest man in the world.

The Facebook founder is now down to the 20th, according to Bloomberg.

To be sure, all the big guys on Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and others lost money this year, but Zuckerberg’s loss of $71 billion was the greatest.

Two years ago, at $106 billion, Zuckerberg was the world’s third richest man; now he’s down to a paltry $55.9 billion.

Most of his money is in Meta Platforms, Inc., the new name for what was previously Facebook, Inc.

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Zuckerberg’s peak was a year ago when he was worth $142 billion, and Facebook stock was at $382 per share. Midday Wednesday it was at about $149.

It was in October 2021, that Zuckerberg changed Facebook’s name to Meta and billed it as an incursion into the metaverse, the internet’s integration of virtual reality and social media.

Things began to unravel after that, beginning in February when Meta said Facebook stopped adding users. That triggered a stock price collapse and Zuckerberg’s net worth dropped by $31 billion, said to be one of the biggest single-day evaporations of wealth.

Also hindering Meta is its expected three to five-year substantial losses in its metaverse investment and the departures of users to TikTok, according to Laura Martin, an analyst at Needham & Co.

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The company also has problems with “excessive regulatory scrutiny and intervention,” Martin said.

You think?

Has that scrutiny and intervention come because of the Biden administration colluding with Facebook to censor users?

Is it because Facebook blocked Republican criticism of student loan forgiveness?

Is it because egregious behavior by Facebook brought criticism even from a New York Times columnist?

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