MARK Zuckerberg saw almost £70billion wiped off the value of his media giant Meta yesterday.
The company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has been hit by a global advertising downturn.
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Profits have fallen to £3.8billion from £7.95billion in the same period last year.
The news led to Meta shares dropping 20 per cent yesterday — they are down around 70 per cent from the beginning of this year.
Founder Zuckerberg admitted the company was facing “near-term challenges”.
He said: “I think that those who are patient and invest with us will end up being rewarded.”
Meta was focused on becoming more efficient, he added.
But investors have criticised his decision to focus on the future promise of the digital avatar-filled world called metaverse and artificial intelligence.
The metaverse won’t generate returns for years.
Laith Khalaf, at AJ Bell, said it was unpalatable to the market to be “spouting on about the metaverse when in the here and now the social media business is struggling”.
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Meta said 2.93 billion people used its platforms daily in the last three months.
