Worst CEOs of the Year: Evan Spiegel of Snap

SNAP -1.37%

We have started choosing candidates for our annual worst CEO list, and Evan Spiegel of Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) is the next candidate. An all-time winner will be selected later in the year.

24/7 Wall St. Key Points

• Evan Spiegel of Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) is a candidate for the worst CEO of 2025.

• Wall Street believes that Snap’s future is no better than its past.

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Before looking at the past year, it is worth remembering that Spiegel has been chief executive of Snap since 2011. Snap shares are down 84% in the past five years, 36% in the past year, and 27% year to date. His net worth, in the meantime, is approximately $2.5 billion.

However, this is about 2025. Granted, revenue is up 11% in the first three quarters to $4.2 billion. Yet, after all these years, the company still loses money. In the first three quarters, the net loss was $104 million. That compared to a loss of $153 million in the same period of last year. After so many years, Snap should be doing better.

More Disappointments

Just as disappointing is Snap’s position among social media companies based on monthly active users. According to Salesforce.com, Snap ranks ninth at 900 million. The leader is Facebook, at 3.07 billion. WhatsApp follows with 2.78 billion. Snap’s number in its third quarter announcement is slightly different, up 7% year over year to 943 million.

Spiegel’s single largest problem is that much of Wall Street believes that Snap’s future is no better than its past. Of the 43 analysts who cover the company, 35 rate it at Hold, Sell, or Underperform. The average stock price forecast is $9.87, and shares currently trade at $7.91. The consensus estimate is that revenue will grow only 10.3% this year and that Snap will have a per-share loss of $0.33 in 2025. Last year, that loss was $0.42. Worse, the expectation for next year is yet another loss of $0.19 a share. In other words, another year in which it will not make money.

The company has cut one significant deal this year. Perplexity’s AI-powered answer engine will be integrated into Snapchat. The deal also gave Snap $400 million of cash and equity over the next year. And it made its shares spike to $9. However, the stock quickly traded lower and is down almost 4% for the past month, while the S&P 500 is up 2%.

Wall Street continues to have issues Spiegel cannot get away from. First, Snap is not growing fast enough. Second, while the Perplexity deal seems good, it is not good enough. Perplexity is still a niche player among the artificial intelligence startups. With a valuation at $20 billion, it trails OpenAI at $500 billion, Anthropic at $350 billion, and xAI at $230 billion. The Perplexity deal is good, but in the eyes of investors, not big enough. Moreover, OpenAI has launched what could be a larger competitor to the Snap deal with its Sora app.

Snap has been left behind in its sector for years. In 2025, it was left behind again.

Snap Just Announced a $500 Million Stock Buyback

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