New Delhi: Meta, formerly Facebook, lost over $230 billion of market value in early trading on Thursday, with the shares of Facebook falling over 25 per cent. This was Meta's worst trading session in history. 


The shares of the Facebook parent company fell after Meta's dismal quarterly earnings report showed declining users and surging expenses related to the company's metaverse project, according to a Forbes report.


The collapse of Meta's stock on Thursday is the biggest drop ever, after Facebook's user base faltered last quarter, media reports said. 


Following are 13 things to know about the worst ever stock market crash:



  1. Meta lost more than $230 billion in market value on Thursday. This put Meta on track for the biggest one-day wipeout of market value in US history, according to Bloomberg data. 

  2. The shares of Meta fell more than 25 per cent on Thursday. As of 9:34 am ET on Thursday (8:04 pm IST on Thursday), Meta stock was 25.6 per cent lower at $240.31, compared to the stock on Wednesday, which closed at $323 billion.

  3. There was a sharp drop in Meta's market capitalisation, which is the value of all its shares combined, from $898.5 billion to $668.4 billion. This sharp drop is one the pace to be the biggest wipeout ever in US market history, according to Bloomberg data.

  4. In its quarterly earnings report, Meta issued weaker-than-expected revenue guidance and warned of several challenges to its businesses this year. 

  5. Investors were alarmed by both declining user growth and rising expenses tied to the company's focus on augmented and virtual realities, as a result of which they dumped shares of the tech giant, according to reports.

  6. Meta's fourth-quarter earnings showed daily users falling for the first time ever. After Wednesday's market close, the company announced a decline in Facebook users for the first time in its 18-year history. 

  7. Facebook's active users have fallen to 1.93 billion. 

  8. Meta said that business on its core platform had slowed. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that the company is facing serious competition for user time and attention, particularly from video-sharing app TikTok.

  9. Zuckerberg is investing more in the metaverse project and is shifting more of Meta's resources into making the project a success. Last year, Facebook spent more than $10 billion along these lines, and is expecting a "meaningful increase" in similar expenses for 2022, according to the Forbes report.



  1. According to Forbes' calculations, Zuckerberg saw $28.6 billion wiped from his net worth. The Meta CEO is now worth $85.9 billion. He dropped below the $100 billion mark for the first time ever since last year.

  2. Zuckerberg said that Meta's rival to TikTok, Reels, is growing quickly, but monetisation has been slow, according to a Bloomberg article. 

  3. According to an article by British online newspaper The Independent, Meta said that the violating accounts solely constituted about three per cent of worldwide monthly active users in the fourth quarter, while duplicate accounts may have represented around 11 per cent of usage. 

  4. On Wednesday, Meta said that the tech giant's profit came in at $10.3 billion in the fourth quarter, according to reports.