Tech mogul Mark Zuckerberg experienced a significant decline in his personal wealth on November 6, as Meta's stock shares dropped by 2.3%. This single-day loss amounted to $5 billion of his net worth, primarily due to reports indicating that a substantial portion of Meta's future advertising revenues was projected to come from running advertisements for scams, as reported by Forbes.

This downturn caused Zuckerberg, who holds approximately 13% of Meta shares, to fall out of the top five richest people globally. Previously ranked as the third richest person in the world, behind Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Oracle's Larry Ellison, he now ranks sixth with a net worth of $212.5 billion. The Forbes Real-time Billionaires list, as of 10:46 PM IST on November 6, showed him behind Elon Musk ($496.5 billion), Larry Ellison ($298.8 billion), Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ($257 billion), and Google co-founders Larry Page ($235 billion) and Sergey Brin ($217.9 billion).

The 2.3% drop in Meta's stock price to around $620.75 on November 6 was triggered by a Reuters report. This report cited internal Meta documents projecting that up to 10% of its advertising revenue, estimated at approximately $16 billion, could originate from ads for scams and banned goods. This recent decline compounded a nearly 17.5% drop in stock value over the preceding week, which included an over 11% single-day fall after the company posted its Q3 earnings.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone responded to the Reuters report, stating that it presented a "selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams." Stone claimed the company's internal estimates for scam-related ad revenue were lower and that the 10% figure included "many" legitimate ads. However, he did not provide updated figures to Reuters and did not respond to Forbes' inquiries.

Adding to Meta's challenges, Reuters also reported that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (US SEC) is scrutinizing the company for its role in running financial scam advertisements. Furthermore, a Forbes report, citing UK regulatory authorities, indicated that Meta's products were linked to 54% of all payment-related scam losses in 2023, more than double the combined total of all other social media platforms.