WASHINGTON- Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth plunged bya whopping $5.1 billion in less than a day as the social media giant waspounded by criticism at home and abroad over revelations that a firmworking for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign harvested and misused dataon 50 million members.

Calls for investigations came on both sides of the Atlantic after Facebookresponded to explosive reports of misuse of its data by suspending theaccount of Cambridge Analytica, a British firm hired by Trump’s 2016campaign.

Zuckerberg, who owns about 16 percent of Facebook’s shares, is now worth anestimated USD 69.6 billion, according to Forbes’ real-time rankings of theworld’s billionaires.

According to Forbes magazine’s annual billionaires list published on thefirst week of this month, Zuckerberg was fifth on the list.

However, as per the real-time rankings, he is currently the tenth-richestperson on the planet, down from fifth.

Meanwhile, Facebook said it has hired a digital forensics firm to examinehow the data leak occurred and to ensure that any data collected had beendestroyed.

Facebook shares skidded 6.8 percent by the close of the Nasdaq on concernsabout pressure for new regulations that could hurt its business model.

Shares slipped another percent or so to $170 in after-market trades.

The sell-off spread to other technology giants on Wall Street includingApple, Google-parent Alphabet and Netflix. Asian markets extended thelosses, with Tokyo-listed Sony down, Samsung falling in Seoul and Tencentretreating in Hong Kong.