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Mark Zuckerberg loses billions in net worth amid Facebook outage, whistleblower news

By Michelle Ewing, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
By Michelle Ewing, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth tumbled by billions of dollars within hours as his social networks went offline and a whistleblower prepared to testify before Congress.

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Photos: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg through the years Here are some memorable moments from Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's life in the public eye. (LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images)

According to Bloomberg, the 37-year-old social media magnate’s worth fell by at least $6 billion – to $121.6 billion – as Facebook shares plunged 4.9% on Monday. Forbes reported similar figures, saying Zuckerberg’s fortune dropped to $117 billion – a $5.9 billion decline. The new numbers put him at No. 5 on Bloomberg’s list of the world’s richest people, behind Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault and Bill Gates.

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Photos: Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testifies before Congress Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen speaks during a hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security, on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The news came as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp suffered a worldwide outage that began shortly before noon Monday, according to The Associated Press. The services began to come back online about six hours later.

>> Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp services being restored slowly, company confirms

“We want to make clear at this time we believe the root cause of this outage was a faulty configuration change,” the company said in a blog post Monday night. “We also have no evidence that user data was compromised as a result of this downtime.”

Meanwhile, whistleblower Frances Haugen, who worked as a product manager for Facebook, was slated to testify before a U.S. Senate subcommittee Tuesday, according to the AP.

“Facebook, over and over again, has shown it chooses profit over safety,” she said in a “60 Minutes” interview Sunday, adding that she doesn’t trust that the company is “willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous.”

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– The Associated Press contributed to this report.

©2021 Cox Media Group

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