Facebook CRISIS: Experts warn Silicon Valley tycoon faces WORST day ever as shares tumble

Facebook shares slumped by 24 percent in after-hours trade on Tuesday, wiping an eye-watering $130 billion off its market value in just two hours.

The company missed projections on key metrics after struggling with data leaks and fake news scandals.

Shares initially dropped 12 percent after the market closed as the social media giant announced its poor second quarter finance figures.

But worse was to come during a conference call an hour later when senior employees painted a gloomy picture of more slow growth and dwindling revenues.

Shares slumped to just below $170, a drop of 24 percent, before rebounding later.

Speaking to CNBC, Ed Lee of The New York Times said: “When you’re having content that you’re having to police now because of what’s been happening with all the scandals, it just costs more.

“They just need to face up to the fact that they are a media company and media is an expensive prospect.

“It’s a difficult thing to edit, to look at, to look at carefully.”

Asked for a grade he would give to Facebook’s quarter statement, Gene Munster of Loup Ventures claimed the Silicon Valley tycoon could only be a C+.

He said: “This is a C+ and the reason is that this company has gone and has historically blown through the numbers.

“We didn’t see that on the top line. A miss on the important engagement number.

“I’m glad to hear Mark Zuckerberg talking about some of the debate around the social value in Facebook.

“But putting it all together it’s a C+.”

Others were more sympathetic to Mark Zuckerberg’s worst performance. 

Mark Mahoney of RBC Capital Markets said: “You still have Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, which are two billion plus user platforms that are zero monetised to date.

“So I still think they’ve got plenty of revenue growth drivers going forward.

“They’re making absolutely the right investments now in the security of the platform.

“If they don’t get the security of the platform right, it’s all over.”

And Peter Najarian, co-founder of Investitute.com, still predicted a bright future for Zuckerberg’s company.

He said: “Everybody is selling it off, I think that creates opportunity.

“This is a company that trades at a very reasonable multiple, continues to grow at an incredible pace.

“Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp.

“All of that and the fact that they’ll be moving more into the video side of things, I think this thing is very cheap at $200.”

On Thursday, Facebook revealed greater spending costs and slowed user growth in key advertising markets amid changing privacy rules and fake news woes.

Chief Financial Officer David Wehner said: “Our total revenue growth rate decelerated approximately seven percentage points in Q2 compared to Q1.

“Our total revenue growth rates will continue to decelerate in the second half of 2018, and we expect our revenue growth rates to decline by high single-digit percentages from prior quarters sequentially in both Q3 and Q4.”

Active user numbers dropped in Europe, which the company attributed to the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation in May 2018.