A widespread outage on Meta’s social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, on March 5, 2024, led to an estimated loss of $3 billion for the company, impacting billions of users globally, as reported by India Today.
Meta’s stock experienced a 1.6% decline, closing at $490.22 on NASDAQ during the trading session on March 5. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Meta, incurred a one-day loss of over $2.79 billion, reducing his net worth to $176 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Despite the loss, Zuckerberg retained his position as the world’s fourth-richest person.
Reuters reported issues with the application programming interface for WhatsApp Business, as indicated on Meta’s status dashboard. Approximately 200 outage reports for WhatsApp were registered on Downdetector, a platform that tracks outages using user-reported status updates.
During the outage, users globally faced difficulties logging into their accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and Messenger platforms for over 30 minutes. Elon Musk seized the opportunity to take a jab at Meta through a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Musk’s post humorously mentioned the reliability of their servers, earning immediate reactions from users.
In February 2024, Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth soared by $27.1 billion after Meta’s quarterly results surpassed Wall Street’s expectations, leading to a 20% increase in its shares. Zuckerberg reached a net worth of $169.5 billion, making him the fourth-richest person globally, surpassing Bill Gates on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Meta also announced a quarterly cash dividend of 50 cents per share for Class A and B common stock starting in March. With Zuckerberg holding approximately 350 million shares, he stands to receive about $175 million in each quarterly payment before taxes.
In summary, the global outage resulted in a substantial financial setback for Meta, impacting its stock value and Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth.
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