Facebook stock now richer than Nigeria as stock hits $1 trillion

By Dr Moses George

Last month, the Buhari’s administration suspended Twitter operations in Nigeria after the social media giant deleted the president’s tweets from its site. A five man team led by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami has since been set up by Nigeria’s government to meet with Twitter’s management so as to settle the impasse.

From all indications, the suspension of twitter from operating in Nigeria has not affected the wealth of Mark Zuckerberg , the billionaire social media mogul. If anything, Zuckerberg has become even richer after Facebook’s stock went up to over $1 trillion on Monday. Facebook is the fifth American company to join the cream of the crop club comprising Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet, the parent company of Google. With this recent development in the fortunes of the company, Facebook’s stock value is now two times that of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP.

Nigeria’s GDP according to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, NBS currently stands at $514 billion with the potential to rise to $588 billion by the end of 2021. Zuckerberg’s fortune is estimated to be above 1.78 billion barrels of crude oil, which is Nigeria’s major foreign exchange earner.

The monumental rise of Facebook’s value must be a great relief for Zuckerberg whose other platform such as Twitter was recently suspended by some countries such as Nigeria, India, Egypt, etc. Even in the United States where the media giant is based, it has been facing some legal issues. With a personal net worth of $132 billion, Mark Zuckerberg is one of the richest persons in the world. His company is estimated to be worth $3.28 billion in cash which represents 2.5 per cent of his net worth.

Zuckerberg, who currently holds 99 per cent in the world’s most popular blogging site, is the fifth richest man in the world. He was quoted to have said that his plan is to give up his Facebook shares after he has added over $28 billion to his personal wealth.

According to experts, the surge in Facebook’s stock value is linked to a ruling in the United States which dismissed an antitrust lawsuit brought against the firm by the Federal Trade Commission, FTC. At the close of Monday trading, Facebook exceeded a $1 trillion market valuation with the stock trading at $355.64, posting yearly gains of more than 60 per cent.
Dr Moses George is the Managing Editor of CapitalPost