[News] Mark Zuckerberg Gets Billions Richer As Facebook Stock Rises Amid Capitol Hill Hearing
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives to testify before a joint hearing of the Commerce and Judiciary Committees on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 10, 2018, about the use of Facebook data to target American voters in the 2016 election. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
In a highly anticipated hearing Tuesday, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerbergspent multiple hours answering questions from more than 40 U.S. Senators following revelations in recent weeks that some 87 million Facebook users had their data scraped inappropriately by political research firm Cambridge Analytica.
While congressional lawmakers pummeled Zuckerberg with questions ranging from Facebook’s negligence in curtailing violence-inciting messages in Myanmar to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the company’s stock surged, closing Tuesday up 4.5% at $165.04 per share. Facebook had its best trading day in two years.
Zuckerberg, whose net worth tumbled in the days following news of the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March, was the biggest gainer on Tuesday in Forbes Real-Time Rankings of the World’s Billionaires. The stock surge added $2.8 billion to his fortune, now $66 billion, making him the seventh richest person in the world. Zuckerberg owns slightly more than 16% of Facebook’s shares.
“The stock reflected a lot of bad news going in,” said Thill. “Zuckerberg has respectively responded to tough questions with good answers. His commentary is beating expectations.”
Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook was “slow” to respond to reports that its site was central to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections, calling it “one of my greatest regrets.” He also told Congress he was open to future regulation of Facebook, if it is the “right” regulation.
“It is a balanced discussion with not a lot of ‘new news,’” Thill said of the congressional hearing.
Zuckerberg’s fortune tumbled nearly $13 billion to $61 billion in the 10 days following March 17, when news broke about the scandal involving Cambridge Analytica. On March 26, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced it had launched an investigation into Facebook’s privacy practices.
More than a week later on April 4, Facebook revealed that Cambridge Analytica had access to the data of 87 million users, rather than the 50 million users that had previously been reported. Two days later, Zuckerberg penned a blog post announcing new policies to vet advertisers in a stricter fashion to prevent future election meddling on its site. The new rules would require Facebook to label political ads and require those advertisers to confirm their identities and locations.
Zuckerberg will return to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for a round of questioning from members of House Energy and Commerce Committee.
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