Last week Facebook faced its largest stock depreciation since they went public 6 years ago. Their market capitalization as of the day before was $630 billion, and within 24 hours, had dropped to $510 billion. Close to 34 MILLION shares were traded overnight, while the average volume of stocks traded lies around 17 million. This loss accounts for around one-fifth of its value. This decline immediately followed the release of Facebooks earning report, then continued to fall while Facebook HQ was in a conference with analysts. This 20% decline in stock accounted for $120 billion loss from the company and roughly $16 billion right out of Mark Zuckerberg’s pocket.

While this massive decline may set Facebook back around one-fifth of its value, it might have been a small price to pay in the greater scheme of things. Between the data breach and alleged election interference, Facebook lost very little immediately following each of the many scandals they faced in the last year. Are the mistakes finally catching up to them? Will Zuckerberg continue to spread fake news and lose billions? Maybe. This decline in revenue and user growth is what could damage Facebook in the long run.

After suffering THE WORST single session loss in value of a public American company EVER, it is unclear how Facebook will try to cut their losses. The last time the US saw a drop like this was in 2000 when Intel lost $90 billion in one day. 18 years later, Facebook has topped that record at $120 billion in just one session. Since last week, Facebook has made efforts in introducing a new feature to show users how much time they spend browsing their newsfeed. They have also announced the identification and removal of various Facebook pages and users that may have intervened in political activity. Though these efforts are positive steps for Facebook’s brand and public relations, it will be interesting to see if they can account for even a fraction of that historic loss. If Facebook can make up for this decline quickly, there is no telling what Zuckerberg can do.