Following a widespread global outage that impacted Meta’s social media platforms, including Instagram and Facebook, on March 5th, 2024, the company suffered an estimated loss of $3 billion. According to a report by India Today, the outage affected billions of users worldwide.
On that day, the stocks of Meta experienced a significant decline, closing down 1.6% at $490.22, as reported by NASDAQ.
Despite this setback, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Meta, saw his net worth decrease by over USD 2.79 billion in a single day, amounting to USD 176 billion, as per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Nevertheless, he retained his position as the fourth-richest person globally.
Reuters reported that Meta’s status dashboard indicated issues with the application programming interface for WhatsApp Business. Additionally, Downdetector recorded approximately 200 outage reports for WhatsApp, suggesting widespread service disruption.
During the outage, Elon Musk took a dig at Meta, humorously remarking, “If you’re reading this post, it’s because our servers are working,” on X, formerly known as Twitter. The outage affected not only Facebook and Instagram but also Threads and Messenger platforms, causing login difficulties for users worldwide.
In February 2024, Zuckerberg’s net worth surged by USD 27.1 billion following Meta’s impressive quarterly results, which surpassed Wall Street’s expectations. This increase elevated his net worth to USD 169.5 billion, surpassing Bill Gates and securing his position as the fourth-richest individual on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Meta also announced a quarterly cash dividend of 50 cents per share for Class A and B common stock, commencing in March. With Zuckerberg holding approximately 350 million shares, he stands to receive about $175 million in each quarterly payment before taxes, according to Bloomberg’s data.
