Mark Zuckerberg net worth plunges on Facebook row, loss jumps to whopping $6 bn

Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg's net worth plunged a whopping $6 billion in a day amid a flurry of bad news that pulled the Facebook stock sharply lower. The social media firm came under fire following reports that it allowed improper access to user data. The consultancy firm to which Facebook is alleged to have provided user data had worked on President Donald Trump’s election campaign.  Facebook shares plunged as much as 8 per cent overnight on Wall Street. The stock settled 6.8 per cent lower at $172.56 on NASDAQ. According to Forbes' real-time billionaire tracker, Mark Zuckerberg's net worth stood at $69.6 billion. Zuckerberg is now the sixth richest man in the world.

This massive Facebook loss came after US and British media reported that the data of more than 50 million Facebook users were inappropriately used by a British data analysis company, Cambridge Analytica, in activities allegedly connected with US President Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign.

Trump's campaign reportedly used the firm's data during the primaries but not during the general election and Federal Election Commission numbers showed the firm collected $5.9 million in 2016 from Trump's campaign, Xinhua cited California-based The Mercury News daily as saying.

Cambridge Analytica received user data from a Facebook app years ago that purported to be a psychological research tool, though the firm was not authorised to have that information.

Facebook admitted that an estimated 270,000 people had downloaded the app and shared their personal details with it.

Last Friday, Facebook said in an official post that it had suspended "Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL), including their political data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica," from its website.

It said the two companies had failed to delete user data acquired in 2015 in violation of Facebook rules.