Meta Platforms adopted its current corporate name in 2021.
On October 28, 2021, Facebook Inc. announced that it would change its name to Meta Platforms, Inc. The rebranding reflected chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s emphasis on building the metaverse, a broad concept involving immersive virtual and augmented-reality experiences. The company’s social network continued to use the Facebook name after the corporate change.
The name change did not mean that Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp disappeared. Those services remained part of the company’s portfolio, alongside products such as Messenger and Reality Labs hardware. Meta’s stock ticker also changed from FB to META in 2022.
A frequent confusion is treating Meta as the name of the social-networking app. Facebook remains the name of the platform, while Meta Platforms is the parent corporation. The rebrand was announced in 2021, although the company had already begun describing itself as a technology group operating across several products.