Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Facebook Inc., speaks virtually during a House Energy and Commerce Subcommittees hearing on a tablet computer in Princeton, Illinois, U.S., on Thursday, March 25, 2021. The chief executives of Facebook, Google, and Twitter are testifying as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle prepare to press the companies over the spread of false information that contributed to the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol attacks. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg 
By Scott Carpenter
Oct 4, 2021, 8:09 PM
Word Count: 245
A selloff sent the social-media giant’s stock plummeting around 5% on Monday, adding to a drop of about 15% since mid-September.
The stock slide on Monday sent Zuckerberg’s worth down to $120.9 billion, dropping him below Bill Gates to No. 5 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He’s lost about $19 billion of wealth since Sept. 13, when he was worth nearly $140 billion, according to the index.
On Sept. 13, the Wall Street Journal began publishing a series of stories based on a cache of internal documents, revealing that Facebook knew about a wide range of problems with its products — such as Instagram’s harm to teenage girls’ mental health and misinformation about the Jan. 6 Capitol riots — while downplaying the issues in public. The reports have drawn the attention of government officials, and on Monday, the whistleblower revealed herself.
In response, Facebook has emphasized that the issues facing its products, including political polarization, are complex and not caused by technology alone.
“I think it gives people comfort to assume that there must be a technological or a technical explanation for the issues of political polarization in the United States,” Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, told CNN.
--With assistance from Jack Witzig.