Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg lost billions in Facebook stock value on Monday, amid a flurry of bad news connected to data misuse.
The move would knock $23.8 billion off the social network’s market value of $538 billion as of Friday’s close and shares in other social media companies including Twitter Inc and Snap Inc also dipped.
Shares of the social media giant plunged as much as 8 percent after reports emerged over the weekend that data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica used the data of over 50 million users of the social network without their permission.
One Wall Street analyst said the reports raised ‘systemic problems’ with Facebook’s business model and a number said it could spur far deeper regulatory scrutiny of the platform.
The head of European Parliament said on Monday that European Union lawmakers will investigate whether the data misuse has taken place, adding the allegation is an unacceptable violation of citizens’ privacy rights.
Zuckerberg, together with his affiliated organizations, like the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, has more than 403 million shares of Facebook stock — 9,347,183 Class A common shares and 393,938,853 Class B common shares, according to Courtney Yu, director of research at compensation data firm Equilar.
Those shares are still worth about $68.5 billion.
Despite his losses, Zuckerberg is still the fourth richest person in the world, behind Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, according to Bloomberg.
With Monday’s plunge, Facebook shares are down about 2.6 percent year-to-date. The stock pared losses slightly during Monday trading.
Cambridge Analytica made headlines as the political data analytics firm that worked on Facebook ads for President Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. Facebook blocked the firm’s data harvesting app in 2015 and announced on Friday it suspended the firm for lying about deleting user data.
Despite Facebook’s insistence, it has done what it can to protect users’ data, the scuffle has stirred up discussion over tech regulations. Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner, one of the most prominent voices in the debate about online political advertising, said the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook spat indicative of a market that’s “essentially the Wild West” of advertising.
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