5/29/2012
 U2 frontman Bono has seen possibly $342 million vanish from his investment portfolio in the past week, thanks to the fall of the Facebook stock price. According to NME.com, Bono and his associates at the private equity firm Elevation Partners made as much as $2.19 billion last week when Facebook -- in which Elevation bought a 2.3 percent stake in 2009 for $90 million -- made its initial public stock offering.
But controversy over the way the IPO was handled -- with allegations that high-level investors were given better analysis than average ones -- has sent the stock plunging, with shares ending up more than 16 percent below their initial price at the close of business on Friday (May 25th). As a result, Elevation's stake is now worth $1.84 billion.
- Bono spent part of last week denying reports that the Facebook IPO made him a billionaire personally, telling MSNBC, "Contrary to reports, I'm not a billionaire or going to be richer than any Beatle."
- The Irish rock legend explained why he was interested in Facebook in the first place, saying, "Technology is huge, I wanted to learn about it. People might say that's odd, but I think it's odd if artists aren't interested in the world around them. I'm always chasing that. Facebook are an amazing team, a brilliant team, it's a technology that brings people together."
- Bono was rumored to be worth somewhere between $300 million and $900 million even before the Facebook windfall.
- U2 is said to be working on new music at the moment, although the group has reportedly recorded at least one album's worth of material in the past year. The quartet last studio set was 2009's No Line On The Horizon.
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