Meta Platforms, Inc.

,[10] doing business as Meta,[11] and formerly

named Facebook, Inc., and TheFacebook, Inc.,[12][13] is an American multinational
technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California. The company owns and
operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, among other products and
services.[14] Advertising accounts for 97.8 percent of its revenue. [a][15] Originally
known as the parent company of the Facebook service, as Facebook, Inc., it was
rebranded to its current name in 2021 to "reflect its focus on building
the metaverse",[16] an integrated environment linking the company's products and
services.[17][18][19]
Meta ranks among the largest American information technology companies,
alongside other Big Five corporations Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple,
and Microsoft. The company was ranked #31 on the Forbes Global 2000 ranking in
2023.[20] In 2022, Meta was the company with the third-highest
expenditure on research and development worldwide, with R&D expenditure
amounting to US$35.3 billion.[21] Meta has also acquired Oculus (which it has
integrated into Reality Labs), Mapillary, CTRL-Labs, and a 9.99% stake in Jio
Platforms; the company additionally endeavored into non-VR hardware, such as the
discontinued Meta Portal smart displays line and partners with Luxottica through
the Ray-Ban Stories series of smartglasses.[22][23]
History
Further information: History of Facebook and Initial public offering of Facebook

Billboard on the Thomson Reuters building welcomes

Facebook to Nasdaq, 2012 Early chart of Facebook's

stock Facebook corporate logo from 2019 to 2021

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  v
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Facebook filed for an initial public offering (IPO) on January 1, 2012.[24] The
preliminary prospectus stated that the company sought to raise $5 billion, had 845
million monthly active users, and a website accruing 2.7 billion likes and comments
daily.[25] After the IPO, Zuckerberg would retain 22% of the total shares and 57% of
the total voting power in Facebook. [26]
Underwriters valued the shares at $38 each, valuing the company at $104 billion,
the largest valuation yet for a newly public company. [27] On May 16, one day before
the IPO, Facebook announced it would sell 25% more shares than originally planned
due to high demand.[28] The IPO raised $16 billion, making it the third-largest in US
history (slightly ahead of AT&T Mobility and behind only General Motors and Visa).
The stock price left the company with a higher market capitalization than all but a
few U.S. corporations—surpassing heavyweights such
as Amazon, McDonald's, Disney, and Kraft Foods—and made Zuckerberg's stock
worth $19 billion.[29][30] The New York Times stated that the offering overcame
questions about Facebook's difficulties in attracting advertisers to transform the
company into a "must-own stock". Jimmy Lee of JPMorgan Chase described it as "the
next great blue-chip".[29] Writers at TechCrunch, on the other hand, expressed
skepticism, stating, "That's a big multiple to live up to, and Facebook will likely need
to add bold new revenue streams to justify the mammoth valuation." [31]
Trading in the stock, which began on May 18, was delayed that day due to technical
problems with the Nasdaq exchange.[32] The stock struggled to stay above the IPO
price for most of the day, forcing underwriters to buy back shares to support the
price.[33] At the closing bell, shares were valued at $38.23, [34] only $0.23 above the
IPO price and down $3.82 from the opening bell value. The opening was widely
described by the financial press as a disappointment. [35] The stock nonetheless set a
new record for trading volume of an IPO.[36] On May 25, 2012, the stock ended its
first full week of trading at $31.91, a 16.5% decline. [37]
On May 22, 2012, regulators from Wall Street's Financial Industry Regulatory
Authority announced that they had begun to investigate whether banks
underwriting Facebook had improperly shared information only with select clients
rather than the general public. Massachusetts Secretary of State William F.
Galvin subpoenaed Morgan Stanley over the same issue.[38] The allegations sparked
"fury" among some investors and led to the immediate filing of several lawsuits, one
of them a class action suit claiming more than $2.5 billion in losses due to the IPO.
[39]
Bloomberg estimated that retail investors may have lost approximately $630
million on Facebook stock since its debut. [40] S&P Global Ratings added Facebook to
its S&P 500 index on December 21, 2013.[41]
On May 2, 2014, Zuckerberg announced that the company would be changing its
internal motto from "Move fast and break things" to "Move fast with stable
infrastructure".[42][43] The earlier motto had been described as Zuckerberg's "prime
directive to his developers and team" in a 2009 interview in Business Insider, in
which he also said, "Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast
enough."[44]
2018–2020: Focus on the metaverse
Lasso was a short-video sharing app from Facebook similar to TikTok that was
launched on iOS and Android in 2018 and was aimed at teenagers. On July 2, 2020,
Facebook announced that Lasso would be shutting down on July 10. [45][46][47]
In 2018, the Oculus lead Jason Rubin sent his 50-page vision document titled "The
Metaverse" to Facebook's leadership. In the document, Rubin acknowledged that
Facebook's virtual reality business had not caught on as expected, despite the
hundreds of millions of dollars spent on content for early adopters. He also urged
the company to execute fast and invest heavily in the vision, to shut
out HTC, Apple, Google and other competitors in the VR space. Regarding other
players' participation in the metaverse vision, he called for the company to build the
"metaverse" to prevent their competitors from "being in the VR business in a
meaningful way at all".[48]
In May 2019, Facebook founded Libra Networks, reportedly to develop their
own stablecoin cryptocurrency.[49] Later, it was reported that Libra was being
supported by financial companies such as Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber. The
consortium of companies was expected to pool in $10 million each to fund the
launch of the cryptocurrency coin named Libra.[50] Depending on when it would
receive approval from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory authority to operate
as a payments service, the Libra Association had planned to launch a limited format
cryptocurrency in 2021.[51] Libra was renamed Diem, before being shut down and
sold in January 2022 after backlash from Swiss government regulators and the
public.[52][53]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of online services including Facebook grew
globally.[54] Zuckerberg predicted this would be a "permanent acceleration" that
would continue after the pandemic. Facebook hired aggressively, growing from
48,268 employees in March 2020 to more than 87,000 by September 2022. [54]
2021: Rebrand as Meta
Further information: Criticism of Facebook, Instagram § Impact on people, 2021
Facebook leak, and Frances Haugen
See also: Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal and 2020 Facebook ad
boycotts
Following a period of intense scrutiny and damaging whistleblower leaks, news
started to emerge on October 21, 2021, about Facebook's plan to rebrand the
company and change its name.[55][56] In the Q3 2021 Earnings Call on October 25,
Mark Zuckerberg discussed the ongoing criticism of the company's social services
and the way it operates, and pointed to the pivoting efforts to building
the metaverse – without mentioning the rebranding and the name change. [57] The
metaverse vision and the name change from Facebook, Inc. to Meta Platforms was
introduced at Facebook Connect on October 28, 2021. [58] Based on Facebook's PR
campaign, the name change reflects the company's shifting long term focus of
building the metaverse, a digital extension of the physical world by social media,
virtual reality and augmented reality features. [58][59]
"Meta" had been registered as a trademark in the United States in 2018 (after an
initial filing in 2015) for marketing, advertising, and computer services, by a
Canadian company that provided big data analysis of scientific literature.[60] This
company was acquired in 2017 by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), a foundation
established by Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, and became one of their
projects.[61] Following the rebranding announcement, CZI announced that it had
already decided to deprioritize the earlier Meta project, thus it would be transferring
its rights to the name to Meta Platforms, and the previous project would end in
2022.[62]
2022: Declining profits and mass layoffs
Soon after the rebranding, in early February 2022, Meta reported a greater-than-
expected decline in profits in the fourth quarter of 2021. [63] It reported no growth in
monthly users,[64] and indicated it expected revenue growth to stall. [63] It also
expected measures taken by Apple Inc. to protect user privacy to cost it some $10
billion in advertisement revenue, an amount equal to roughly 8% of its revenue for
2021.[65] In meeting with Meta staff the day after earnings were reported,
Zuckerberg blamed competition for user attention, particularly from video-based
apps such as TikTok.[66]
The 27% reduction in the company's share price which occurred in reaction to the
news eliminated some $230 billion of value from Meta's market capitalization.
[67]
Bloomberg described the decline as "an epic rout that, in its sheer scale, is unlike
anything Wall Street or Silicon Valley has ever seen". [67] Zuckerberg's net worth fell
by as much as $31 billion.[68] Zuckerberg owns 13% of Meta, and the holding makes
up the bulk of his wealth.[69][70]
According to published reports by Bloomberg on March 30, 2022, Meta turned over
data such as phone numbers, physical addresses, and IP addresses to hackers
posing as law enforcement officials using forged documents. The law enforcement
requests sometimes included forged signatures of real or fictional officials. When
asked about the allegations, a Meta representative said, "We review every data
request for legal sufficiency and use advanced systems and processes to validate
law enforcement requests and detect abuse." [71] In June 2022, Sheryl Sandberg, the
chief operating officer of 14 years, announced she would step down that year.
Zuckerberg said that Javier Olivan would replace Sandberg, though in a "more
traditional" role.[72]
In March 2022, Meta (except Meta-owned WhatsApp) and Instagram were banned in
Russia and added to Russian list of terrorist and extremist organizations for
alleged Russophobia and hate speech (up to genocidal calls) amid ongoing Russian
invasion of Ukraine.[73] Meta appealed against the ban but it was upheld by
a Moscow court in June of the same year.[73]
Also in March 2022, Meta and Italian eyewear giant Luxottica released Ray-Ban
Stories, a series of smartglasses which could play music and take pictures. Meta and
Luxottica parent company EssilorLuxottica declined to disclose sales on the line of
products as of September 2022, though Meta has expressed satisfaction with its
customer feedback.[23][74][75]
In July 2022, Meta saw its first year-on-year revenue decline when its total revenue
slipped by 1% to $28.8bn.[76] Analysts and journalists accredited the loss to its
advertising business, which has been limited by Apple's app tracking
transparency feature and the number of people who have opted not to be tracked
by Meta apps. Zuckerberg also accredited the decline to increasing competition
from TikTok.[77][78][79] On October 27, 2022, Meta's market value dropped to $268
billion, a loss of around $700 billion compared to 2021, and its shares fell by 24%. It
lost its spot among the top 20 US companies by market cap, despite reaching the
top 5 in the previous year.[80]
In November 2022, Meta laid off 11,000 employees, 13% of its workforce.
Zuckerberg said the decision to aggressively increase Meta's investments had been
a mistake, as he had wrongly predicted that the surge in e-commerce would last
beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. He also attributed the decline to increased
competition, a global economic downturn and "ads signal loss". [81] Plans to lay off a
further 10,000 employees began in April 2023. [82] The layoffs were part of a general
downturn in the technology industry, alongside layoffs by companies
including Google, Amazon, Tesla, Snap, Twitter and Lyft.[83][84]
Starting from 2022, Meta scrambled to catch up to other tech companies in
adopting specialised artificial intelligence hardware and software. It had been using
less expensive CPUs instead of GPUs for AI work, but that approach turned out to be
less efficient.[85]
Since 2023: Threads, AI and all-time high stock value
In 2023, Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner imposed record EUR 1.2 billion fine
on Meta for transferring data from Europe to the United States without adequate
protections for EU citizens.[86]: 250
In March 2023, Meta announced a new round of layoffs that would cut 10,000
employees and close 5,000 open positions in order to make the company more
efficient.[87] Meta revenue surpassed analyst expectations for the first quarter of
2023 after announcing that it was increasing its focus on AI. [88] On July 6, Meta
launched a new app, Threads, a competitor to Twitter.[89]
Meta announced its artificial intelligence model Llama 2 in July 2023, available for
commercial use via partnerships with major cloud providers like Microsoft. It was the
first project to be unveiled out of Meta's generative AI group after it was set up in
February. It would not charge access or usage but instead operate with an open-
source model to allow Meta to ascertain what improvements need to be made. Prior
to this announcement, Meta said it had no plans to release Llama 2 for commercial
use. An earlier version of Llama was released to academics. [90][91]
In August 2023, Meta announced its permanent removal of news content from
Facebook and Instagram in Canada due to the Online News Act, which requires
Canadian news outlets to be compensated for content shared on its platform. The
Online News Act was in effect by year-end, but Meta will not participate in the
regulatory process.[92] In October 2023, Zuckerberg said that AI would be Meta's
biggest investment area in 2024.[93] Meta finished 2023 as one of the best-
performing technology stocks of the year, with its share price up 150 percent. [94] Its
stock reached an all-time high in January 2024, bringing Meta within 2% of
achieving $1 trillion market capitalization. [95]
Meta Platforms launched an ad-free service in Europe in November 2023, allowing
subscribers to opt-out of personal data being collected for targeted advertising. A
group of 28 European organizations, including Max Schrems' advocacy group NOYB,
the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Wikimedia Europe, and the Electronic Privacy
Information Center, signed a 2024 letter to the European Data Protection
Board (EDPB) expressing concern that this subscriber model would undermine
privacy protections, specifically GDPR data protection standards.[96]
Meta removed the Facebook and Instagram accounts of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei in February 2024, citing repeated violations of its Dangerous
Organizations & Individuals policy. [97] As of March, Meta was under the investigation
of the FDA for alleged use of their social media platforms to sell illegal drugs. [98] On
16 May 2024, the European Commission began an investigation into Meta over
concerns related to child safety.[99][100][101][102]
In May 2023, Iraqi social media influencer Esaa Ahmed-Adnan encountered a
troubling issue when Instagram removed his posts, citing false copyright violations
despite his content being original and free from copyrighted material. He discovered
that extortionists were behind these takedowns, offering to restore his content for
$3,000 or provide ongoing protection for $1,000 per month. This scam, exploiting
Meta’s rights management tools, became widespread in the Middle East, revealing a
gap in Meta’s enforcement in developing regions. An Iraqi nonprofit Tech4Peace’s
founder, Aws al-Saadi helped Ahmed-Adnan and others, but the restoration process
was slow, leading to significant financial losses for many victims, including
prominent figures like Ammar al-Hakim. This situation highlighted Meta’s challenges
in balancing global growth with effective content moderation and protection. [103]
On 16 September 2024, Meta announced it had banned Russian state media outlets
from its platforms worldwide due to concerns about "foreign interference activity."
This decision followed allegations that RT and its employees funneled $10 million
through shell companies to secretly fund influence campaigns on various social
media channels. Meta's actions were part of a broader effort to counter Russian
covert influence operations, which had intensified since the invasion. [104]
At its 2024 Connect conference, Meta presented Orion, [105] its first pair
of augmented reality glasses. Though Orion was originally intended to be sold to
consumers, the manufacturing process turned out to be too complex and expensive.
[106]
Instead, the company pivoted to producing a small number of the glasses to be
used internally.[107]
On 4 October 2024, Meta announced about its new AI model called Movie Gen,
capable of generating realistic video and audio clips based on user prompts. Meta
stated it would not release Movie Gen for open development, preferring to
collaborate directly with content creators and integrate it into its products by the
following year. The model was built using a combination of licensed and publicly
available datasets.[108]
On October 31, 2024, ProPublica published an investigation into deceptive political
advertisement scams that sometimes use hundreds of hijacked profiles and
facebook pages run by organized networks of scammers. The authors cited spotty
enforcement by Meta as a major reason for the extent of the issue. [109]
In November 2024, TechCrunch reported that Meta were considering building a
$10bn global underwater cable spanning 25,000 miles. [110]
In the same month, Meta closed down 2 million accounts on Facebook and
Instagram that were linked to scam centers in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the
Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates doing pig butchering scams.[111]
In December 2024, Meta announced that, beginning February 2025, they would
require advertisers to run ads about financial services in Australia to verify
information about who are the beneficiary and the payer in a bid to regulate scams.
[112]

On the 11th of that month, Meta experienced a global outage impacting accounts
on all of their social media and messaging applications. Outage reports
from DownDetector reached 70,000+ and 100,000+ within minutes for Instagram
and Facebook, respectively.[113] On X, Meta's official account responded to reports
stating they were aware of the technical issue and were working to combat it.[1]