Mark Zuckerberg loses USD 7 billion in hours after WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram suffer global outage

NEW DELHI: Social media giant Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's personal wealth went down as he lost nearly USD 7 billion in a few hours after Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram suffered a global outage on Monday.

According to a Bloomberg report, Zuckerberg also slipped to the 5th spot in the billionaires’ list after Facebook stocks plunged due to the global outage. Zuckerberg, with a total wealth of USD 121.6 billion, has fallen behind Bill Gates.

Notably, a flurry of companies pulled advertising from Facebook Inc.'s network after the social media giant apps like WhatsApp, Instagram and messenger suffered a major global outage yesterday. 

Mark Zuckerberg previously ranked at the third spot on Bloomberg's Billionaires Index. According to Bloomberg, the stocks of Facebook fell by 5% on Monday, adding to a 15 percent decline since mid-September.

Apologising for the disruption in the services of Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram, tech giant's CEO Mark Zuckerberg has offered a personal apology to millions of its users worldwide and said that services are returning online on Tuesday.

"Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger are coming back online now," Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post. "Sorry for the disruption today -- I know how much you rely on our services to stay connected with the people you care about," he said.

Taking to Twitter early on Tuesday, WhatsApp said, "Apologies to everyone who hasn't been able to use WhatsApp today. We're starting to slowly and carefully get WhatsApp working again. Thank you so much for your patience. We will continue to keep you updated when we have more information to share."

Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram faced a major global outage on Monday evening with thousands of users, including those from India, not being able to use these digital platforms.

Facebook owns the photo-sharing platform Instagram and messaging platform WhatsApp. The outage is estimated to have started around 9 PM IST. Users complained of not being able to use any of the three services.

"We are aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We are working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologise for any inconvenience," a Facebook spokesperson said.

The company did not specify the reason for the global outage. A tweet shared by Instagram said, "Instagram and friends are having a little bit of a hard time right now, and you may be having issues using them. Bear with us, we're on it! #instagramdown".

Microblogging platform Twitter was abuzz with tweets about the outage as netizens shared posts and memes about the outage. India has one of the highest number of users of Facebook as well as its other platforms.

As per government data shared earlier this year, India has 53 crore WhatsApp users, 41 crore Facebook users and 21 crore Instagram users.