$8.9 billion. That is what Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth lost on Friday, falling to $257.5 billion, according to Forbes. Meta shares dropped about 4% to roughly $749 after a 4.5% gain the day before, and Zuckerberg, who owns about 13% of the company, took the hit.
The cause was a Goldman Sachs note. It warned that AI hyperscalers, Meta among them, need around $300 billion a year in AI services revenue just to break even on their capital spending, and about $1 trillion a year in AI application spending before they earn solid returns. The note named Meta alongside Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Oracle.
The drop moved Zuckerberg from fourth on the Forbes billionaire list at Thursday’s close to sixth, behind Sergey Brin at $259.9 billion and Michael Dell at $275.9 billion. His loss was the day’s largest on the list, well ahead of Larry Ellison’s $1.6 billion slide. Dell gained more than $10 billion and rose to fourth.
A rally interrupted
Friday broke a strong month. Meta had climbed roughly 36% in September after launching Muse, a personal AI assistant that overtook ChatGPT atop the Apple and Google app stores. Sensor Tower counted 2.8 million downloads in two weeks. On Thursday the company came within 1% of a $2 trillion market value, a mark only Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia and Alphabet have reached.
Earlier in the week Meta carried Muse into hardware: new Ray-Ban Meta glasses, hearing-enhancement features, a device called Muse Charm that Zuckerberg called a “joyful little device,” and VR glasses he described as a “private cinema.”
Analysts split. Rob Biederman of Asymmetric Capital Partners said, “It’s logical that AI agents will become the front door to the internet for a lot of people, which puts the balance of power in Meta’s favour.” JPMorgan’s Doug Anmuth sees the products as part of a Muse platform that could earn revenue from transactions between users, businesses and AI agents, in a market he put in the “tens of trillions” of dollars. Rich Greenfield of LightShed Partners said Meta had “a true right to win in AI” now that it has “a real consumer product.”
Meta closed Friday at $751.66.
Sources
- Mark Zuckerberg Loses $9 Billion In A Day As Goldman Sachs Pours Cold Water On Meta Stock Rally
- Mark Zuckerberg Loses Nearly $9 Billion in One Day as Meta Stock Slides 4% After Goldman Questions AI Spending Payoff
