Mark Zuckerberg's net worth has dropped from $118 billion to $96 billion since he rebranded Facebook as Meta

• Mark Zuckerberg announced nearly two years ago that Facebook had rebranded to become Meta.

• The rebrand reflected Meta's decision to invest heavily in its metaverse business.

• Meta stock, which accounts for most of Zuckerberg's wealth, plummeted initially, but has rebounded some.

It's been almost two years since Mark Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook as Meta to reflect his company's push into the so-called metaverse.

Since that point, his wealth — almost all of which is tied up in his 13% holding in Meta — plummeted in tandem with the company's stock price for a time. It's largely recovered in recent months.

Zuckerberg was worth $118 billion on October 28, 2021 — the day the Meta rebrand was announced — according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

As of Friday morning, his net worth was about $96.5 billion, according to Insider's own calculations based on Bloomberg's index.

Still, even considering the recent gains, that's an on-paper loss of nearly $22 billion in nearly two years since the rebrand was announced. His net worth has recovered from a low of about $37 billion in October 2022, around the one-year anniversary of the Meta rebrand.

Meta's stock cratered late last year after the company reported third quarter earnings that missed expectations, months after it had lost hundreds of millions in valuation following another lackluster earnings report that included the first decline in users in Facebook history.

While the company's stock has recovered through the first six months of this year, it has been a chaotic 2023 with massive layoffs around the tech industry and at Meta in particular, along with a series of issues with regulators and academics, plus added competition as Apple recently revealed its competitor to Zuckerberg's prized virtual reality headsets.

Notably, Apple executives did not use the word "metaverse" once in any of its presentations around the Vision Pro headset, distancing itself from the world of virtual real estate Zuckerberg once deemed the future that has failed to catch on with many consumers.

One report from The Verge indicates that Zuckerberg criticized the Apple headset in a company-wide meeting Thursday, drawing a contrast between the Vision Pro and Meta's own Quest headsets, including the fact that many users in Apple's demos were stationary and working alone, while Zuckerberg reportedly told employees Meta wants to emphasize people working and existing in virtual reality together.

Meta also appears poised to take more risks this year, as reports last month indicated it has been testing, and may be approaching, a release date for its Instagram-based Twitter competitor that has been described as "Instagram for your thoughts."

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg's wealth peaked at $142 billion in September 2021, according to the Bloomberg rankings, putting him among the richest people in the world.

The tech CEO spent part of last year well outside the top 20 because of the massive drops in Meta's stock, but he's recently found himself back in the Top 10 richest people in the world, still well behind No. 1 Elon Musk and No. 2 Bernard Arnault, both of whom click in near $200 billion.

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