Mark Zuckerberg lost nearly $17 billion in under two hours – Here's why

New Delhi: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg saw his fortune sliding to a fifth of his net worth as the social media's stock fell as much as 24 percent after hours on Wednesday on lower-than-expected second quarter earning.

The plummeting stock price wiped out about $150 billion in Facebook's market capitalization in under two hours with Zuckerberg losing $16.8 billion in the wipe out.

As per a Bloomberg report, if the stock slide continues through Thursday's close, Zuckerberg will slide to sixth place from third on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The report further said that it would also "wipe his $13.7 billion of gains for the year, leaving him with just less than $70 billion."

Facing global backlash over the massive Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Facebook`s operating margin fell to 44 percent in the second quarter from 47 percent a year ago.

Facebook`s revenue grew at its slowest pace in almost three years. Sales grew 14 percent to $13.2 billion in the second quarter compared with $9.3 billion a year ago.

A Reuters report said that Facebook reported $5.1 billion in profit, or $1.74 per share, compared with the average estimates of $5.1 billion and $1.72 per share.

Daily user growth for Facebook`s namesake service has slid in six straight quarters, bringing it to 1.47 billion users in the second quarter from 1.23 billion at the end of 2016 when it became embroiled in political issues.

Instagram has grown to 1 billion monthly users from 600 million in late 2016, while Facebook`s two messaging apps, Messenger and WhatsApp have each reported well over 1 billion monthly users.

About 2.5 billion people use at least one of the company`s apps each month, Facebook said on a conference call with investors and analysts.

In April, Facebook had warned investors that more users` data scandals in the future may adversely affect the social networking giant`s reputation and brand image.

With Agency Inputs