The Cambridge Analytica scandal has Facebook feeling it where it counts most for a publicly traded company — investor confidence.
On Friday, the social media giant’s closing stock price was $185.09, making it worth about $538 billion. The next day, the news broke that data consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which worked with Donald Trump on the 2016 election, had allegedly obtained unauthorized access to some 50 million Facebook accounts.
The effects were felt immediately, and not just in the area of privacy concerns. Facebook shares tumbled nearly seven percent on Monday. That’s a loss of about $35 billion in market value, making it the worst day of trading the company has seen in four years.
The slide continued on Tuesday, spurred on by the news that the Federal Trade Commission will launch an investigation into the handling of user data and calls from lawmakers for Facebook executives to testify before Congress on the subject.
The further 2.6 percent drop, which put the stock price at around $168, means that Facebook lost roughly $50 billion in market value over the course of two days. That’s after slightly recovering from an even further dip of around six percent.
But it’s not just the company as a whole that’s hurting. The Cambridge Analytica debacle is affecting the man at the top, as well. From CNBC on Tuesday:
“Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth status has changed — he’s lost more than $9 billion in stock wealth over the past 48 hours.
“Zuckerberg, who owns about 400 million shares of Facebook, has seen his wealth drop to around $66 billion from $75 billion since the stock closed on Friday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index and Forbes. This weekend, he was the fourth richest man in the world. Now, he will be sixth or seventh.”
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