On Thursday alone, roughly $119 billion in market value vanished, knocking Meta out of the top seven U.S. companies by market cap for the first time since 2023.
By Catholics for Catholics
It has been a bumpy ride for Mark Zuckerberg and Meta his company as it took a colossal hit that obliterated him out of $20 billion from his net worth in a single day.
According to Newsmax, shares of the Facebook and Instagram parent company plunged almost 5% Friday, capping a ruthless week that has seen the stock fall about 13%.
The woes piled on after two major courtroom defeats elicited panics that Meta could face a wave of lawsuits like those that once thrashed Big Tobacco.
The damage was rapid and in succession.
On Thursday alone, roughly $119 billion in market value vanished, knocking Meta out of the top seven U.S. companies by market cap for the first time since 2023.
Zuckerberg saw his wealth plunge to about $182.5 billion — down $21 billion in just 24 hours — making him the biggest loser on the Forbes real-time billionaire rankings. He owns about 13% of the company,
For the media mogul, the legal wallops just kept on coming.
For starters, a New Mexico court ruled that Meta did not protect children from sexual predators, hitting the company with $375 million in penalties.
The next day, Meta and Google’s YouTube were found by a jury that the social media behemoths deliberately built addictive features targeting young users, awarding $4.2 million in damages to a now 20-year-old woman.
Still, Meta says it will appeal both decisions, but investors are focused on the bigger picture: a flood of similar lawsuits already building across the country.
According to legal experts, the rulings could be a turning point, opening the door for thousands of cases accusing social media companies of designing platforms that hook kids and expose them to harm — a potential reckoning that could reshape the industry.
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