Facebook and their data scandal seems to be almost all we’ve heard about in the past few days.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal has put data privacy on Facebook directly into the spotlight. Essentially, the entire thing is about third parties being allowed access into what you once thought was private.
However what might shock you is that after appearing at Capitol Hill to face scrutiny over the scandal, Mark Zuckerberg has made $3 billion… Not lost, not stayed the same, he’s actually made money despite being interrogated for the sh*t-storm he’s now at the centre of.
According to CNN Money, Wall Street believe that after his 10 hours of testimony in Congress this week, Mark Zuckerberg came out as the winner.
Despite shares falling on Tuesday morning, they are now up 3 per cent since Zuck first stepped into Capitol Hill.
In total Facebook’s stock has gained about 4.5 per cent since the start of trading Tuesday morning totalling to a rise of around $23 billion for the company as a whole.
And Zuckerberg himself, who owns more than 401.4 million shares in Facebook, got nearly $3 billion out of the share rise in the past few days.
Amazingly, his stake in the company is now worth around $66 billion – that’s a lot of money – making Zuck the seventh richest man in the world.
Though shares are down 16 per cent from the all time high they were at prior to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, most believe the worst is already over.
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Aside from the dark overtones of the scandal, one of the more surreal things to come out of Zuckerberg’s testimony is the fact that his face has become a meme on his own platform.
The ‘Zuck’ was facing a series of questions after reports found data firm Cambridge Analytica attained private information from 87 million Facebook users.
Zuckerberg was on hand to answer questions from the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees on privacy, data mining and regulations during the course of a five-hour hearing.
Some of the questions were pretty obvious for tech-types, even people who’ve grown up with social media, so often, Zuckerberg’s expressions were as you’d expect.
Because of this, he’s become the new face of a bunch of memes – and they’re good:
Zephyr Teachout, an American academic, wrote in The Guardian:
It failed. It was designed to fail. It was a show designed to get Zuckerberg off the hook after only a few hours in Washington DC.
It was a show that gave the pretense of a hearing without a real hearing. It was designed to deflect and confuse.
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