Meta has responded to reports that its Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg is stepping down.
Earlier this week, it was reported that the CEO would be stepping down in the new year.
Read on for the full story.
Now, Facebook really is the original social media giant.
Founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2004, it is considered one of the Big Four media giants alongside Amazon, Apple, and Google.
For a long time, it dominated the internet.
In the early ’00s, pretty much everyone was a Facebook addict, spending hours writing on one another’s walls and “poking” each other.
The founding of the platform has become something of a legend.
The 2010 biographical drama movie, The Social Network, told the story of how the company was founded by Harvard student, Mark Zuckerberg. The movie starred Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer, and Justin Timberlake.
Over the years, Zuckerberg has proven himself to be a shrewd businessman.
And one of the areas in which the Facebook empire has truly excelled is through clever choices of acquisitions.
In April of 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram.
The purchase cost one billion dollars and was one of the most expensive social media spends to date. But it’s clear that it paid dividends, as Instagram has only grown in popularity since 2012.
And that wasn’t their only smart buy.
In 2014, Facebook acquired the chat platform, WhatsApp, for a whopping nineteen billion dollars. Woah.
In recent years, Zuckerberg made the bold decision to merge Facebook with 2 of the most popular and fastest-growing social media platforms out there.
By adding a suffix to their names.
When loading up the likes of Instagram and WhatsApp, users will now see the suffix “from Facebook” underneath.
Just so we don’t forget who owns them, right?
Some suspect that there’s a specific reason for the change.
They believe that Facebook is hoping to utilize its sister companies, Instagram and Whatsapp, as a means of gaining some cool points.
As a result of his dominance in the world of social media…
Zuckerberg’s success has continued to grow and so has his wealth…
This made Zuckerberg a centibillionaire.
Which meant his fortune has surpassed 100 billion dollars, The Guardian reports.
He joined the ranks of Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.
It’s a truly mind-boggling amount of wealth.
The news of Zuckerberg’s wealth status followed his announcement that he would be launching a rival to TikTok.
The Tik Tok alternative is Instagram Reels.
And despite having a high competition to compete with, Reels have proved to be highly popular.
People can’t get enough of them.
Following that, Zuckerberg made quite the change to his social media empire as he announced a rebranding of the company.
“Facebook” is now known as Meta which is apparently linking in with the company’s plans to build a virtual reality “metaverse” which is currently in development.
The social media platform has still kept the old name Facebook, it’s just the company as a whole that has rebranded…
“Today we’re seen as a social-media company, but our DNA is building technology to connect people,” said Zuckerberg, “and the metaverse is the next frontier.”
Despite these moves, it appears that things aren’t going too well for Zuckerberg, as the company’s stock is down by more than half this year alone.
Due to this, the CEO has revealed plans to cut workers who don’t meet the new standard set by Zuckerberg, according to a report.
During a Q&A on June 30, the CEO said that the stock flop “might be one of the worst downturns that we’ve seen in recent history,” and listed that as one of the reasons for cost-cutting.
And Zuckerberg was then hit with more bad news…
Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index reported he’s lost more than half of his wealth in the past year.
Meta fell to twentieth place on the index – its lowest in recent memory!
Bloomberg has suggested the launch of Meta has been the beginning of the end for Zuck.
With his wealth plummeting to $55.9 billion from its former height of $142 billion!
And a recent quarterly report showed things going from bad to worse for Zuckerberg…
It shows his wealth dropping a further $11 billion!
This means that in the past year, Zuckerberg has lost more than $1000 million of his net worth.
The future of the growth of the Metaverse is now cast into serious doubt.
Investors are concerned, and stocks have plummeted over nineteen percent.
And things have only gotten worse for Meta…
As Zuckerberg has announced that 11,000 jobs will be cut.
A statement was made by Zuckerberg on Wednesday, saying: “I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here.
“I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry for those impacted.”
The 11,000 jobs that will be cut is equivalent to thirteen percent of the workforce at Meta, TIME reports.
Meta also has plans to reduce its real estate footprint, review its infrastructure spending, and transition some employees to desk sharing.
More announcements about the major changes occurring at the company are expected to be made in the coming month.
But the latest update is regarding the CEO himself, Mark Zuckerberg.
It comes amid reports that the thirty-eight-year-old would be stepping down.
Meta has denied the reports that emerged earlier this week.
Andy Stone, a communication official at the company, responded by saying: “This is false.”
As per The Independent, Stone gave no further comment or context on the situation.
What do you think about the latest update?