Meta Platforms, Inc.

Meta Platforms, Inc. was founded in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes as Facebook, Inc. Headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company rebranded as Meta Platforms, Inc. in October 2021 to reflect its expanded focus on immersive and AI-driven technologies beyond social networking.

Meta operates four major platforms — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger — serving billions of users worldwide. Its Reality Labs division develops the Quest line of virtual reality headsets and Ray-Ban Meta augmented reality glasses. Meta's AI research organization publishes large language models including the Llama series under open-source licenses and operates one of the largest AI infrastructure investments in the industry.

Meta conducted its initial public offering on NASDAQ in May 2012, originally trading as FB before adopting the ticker META in 2022. The company acquired Instagram in 2012 for approximately $1 billion, WhatsApp in 2014 for approximately $19 billion, and Oculus VR in 2014 for approximately $2 billion. Meta generates revenue primarily through digital advertising across its social platforms and employs tens of thousands of people globally.