After Meta stock crash, Zuckerberg tells employees to focus on video content, cites unprecedented competition from TikTok

Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has asked employees to focus more on video content after the company’s shares witnessed a historic drop, Bloomberg reported.

Meta’s shares tanked 26% on Wednesday, wiping over $200 billion off its value. Zuckerberg’s net worth reduced by $31 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index ranking on February 4.

Zuckerberg, at a meeting with Meta employees after the stock crash, said that the loss could be attributed to the company’s weak revenue forecast in the present quarter.

The Meta CEO told employees to focus on expanding short-video product like Instagram reels and spoke about “facing unprecedented level of competition” from the hugely popular video-sharing platform TikTok, Bloomberg reported, citing a person who attended the virtual meeting.

"People have a lot of choices for how they want to spend their time and apps like TikTok are growing very quickly," Zuckerberg was quoted as saying by Business Insider.

Facebook has witnessed a decline in global daily active users to 1.929 billion in Q4 from 1.930 billion in the previous quarter. The company has blamed Apple's privacy changes and competition from TikTok for its weaker-than-expected forecast.

Facebook had changed its name to Meta in October 2021 to reflect its ambitions for a metaverse -- an immersive form of internet.

“From now on, we will be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first,” Zuckerberg had said while announcing that Facebook would invest heavily in building the metaverse. “That means that over time you won’t need a Facebook account to use our other services. As our new brand starts showing up in our products, I hope people around the world come to know the Meta brand and the future we stand for.”