Meta

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Facebook became Meta Platforms in 2021 as the company broadened its ambitions beyond social media.

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Meta Platforms, Inc., formerly Facebook, is an American technology company focused on social media and artificial intelligence whose products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads. An average of 3.6 billion people used at least one of Meta’s products each day in June 2026. Headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company employed nearly 79,000 workers worldwide as of 2025 and is led by cofounder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta Platforms in October 2021 to reflect Zuckerberg’s focus on the “metaverse,” a concept involving immersive virtual worlds and digital interaction through avatars and virtual reality technology. The renaming also came amid mounting criticism over Facebook’s handling of user privacy, misinformation, and harmful content. By the mid-2020s, Meta had shifted increasing attention toward artificial intelligence and AI-powered products.

Facebook was founded in 2004 by Harvard University students Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. Facebook grew to become the world’s largest social network, with billions of users worldwide.

Facebook acquired Instagram, the popular social media application for sharing photographs and videos, in 2012. It acquired Oculus Virtual Reality in 2014. Facebook’s largest acquisition was the instant-messaging service WhatsApp, which it purchased in 2014.

In 2018, revelations emerged that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had obtained personal data from roughly 87 million Facebook users without their consent through a third-party application. The information was used to develop targeted political advertising, including for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. That same year, Facebook changed its algorithm to prioritize posts from friends and family over journalistic content, a shift that contributed to the spread of hate speech and conspiracy theories.

In 2019, Facebook agreed to pay a $5 billion penalty to settle charges by the Federal Trade Commission that it had misled users about their ability to control access to their personal information, violating a 2012 agreement with the agency. The settlement, then the largest privacy-related penalty imposed by the FTC, also required Facebook to strengthen its privacy protections and establish independent oversight of its handling of user data.

Facebook faced further criticism in 2020 over hate speech following the murder of George Floyd, misinformation about COVID-19, and conspiracy theories surrounding the U.S. presidential election. Some employees publicly challenged the company’s handling of harmful content.

In 2021, a whistleblower turned over tens of thousands of internal company documents showing that Facebook executives had given certain celebrities “VIP” status, subjecting their posts to less stringent content moderation. The documents also revealed that company officials were aware of research linking Instagram use to body dissatisfaction and other mental health concerns among teenagers.

In August 2026, Meta agreed to pay $18 billion to settle claims by dozens of U.S. states and jurisdictions that Facebook and Instagram harmed children through addictive features and violated child privacy laws. The agreement also required Meta to impose daily time limits for younger users, restrict notifications during school hours, strengthen age verification and parental controls, and limit features such as “like” counts.

In October 2026, a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found the company liable for misleading Facebook users about its handling of their personal data. The case stemmed from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, with jurors finding more than 43 million violations of state consumer protection laws. Meta disputed the findings and said it would appeal.

Controversies over privacy, misinformation, and harmful content damaged Facebook’s reputation and intensified criticism of the technology industry and the lack of government regulation of social media. At the same time, Zuckerberg promoted the idea of a metaverse in which users would create avatars and attend virtual events. He emphasized elements of privacy and safety, addressing widespread lack of trust in Facebook.

Meta’s investment in the metaverse proved costly, with its Reality Labs division accumulating more than $80 billion in operating losses from late 2020 through mid-2026. The company also struggled to attract users to its virtual reality products. Beginning in 2023, Zuckerberg shifted Meta’s attention toward generative artificial intelligence and AI-powered tools, while continuing to invest in virtual reality.

Meta’s expansion into generative AI also generated controversy. The company experimented with AI-generated chatbot accounts and celebrity-based AI personas on Instagram and other services, drawing criticism over misinformation, racial stereotyping, and other problematic behavior by some bots.

By the mid-2020s, Meta had shifted increasing resources toward artificial intelligence. For 2026, the company forecast capital expenditures of $135 billion to $145 billion, including investments in AI infrastructure and data centers. The shift brought substantial workforce changes. In May, Meta laid off some 8,000 employees, reassigned roughly 7,000 others to AI-related work, and reduced hiring for thousands of additional positions.

In August, Zuckerberg outlined his vision for what he called “personal superintelligence,” arguing that advanced AI should be widely accessible rather than controlled by a small number of companies or governments. He reaffirmed Meta’s commitment to developing open-source AI models that others could download, modify, and run independently.

In October 2026, Meta filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch $35 billion in public stock offerings as part of a broader financing plan that could raise as much as $95 billion to support its AI expansion. The company also outlined plans to raise up to $60 billion through future sales of a new class of nonvoting common stock, potentially beginning in 2027. The new shares would allow Meta to raise capital without reducing Zuckerberg’s voting control of the company.

Meta also began looking to its AI investments as a source of revenue beyond its traditional advertising business. In 2026, the company introduced AI agents that could perform tasks for businesses, such as answering customer questions, booking appointments, and completing sales. In September, Meta created a business unit to sell AI products and services to companies, including its Muse assistant, coding tools, and access to its AI models and agents.