Meta Platforms, one of the world's most valuable social-media companies by market capitalization, was originally called Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg and fellow Harvard students launched the service as “TheFacebook” in February 2004. The name was later shortened to Facebook, and the company became Facebook, Inc. It expanded from a college social network into a global platform company operating Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
In October 2021, Facebook, Inc. changed its corporate name to Meta Platforms, Inc. The rebrand emphasized the company's interest in building the metaverse, while Facebook remained the name of one of its major social networks.
Meta is therefore the corporate name, not the original company name. Instagram and WhatsApp are important Meta-owned products, but neither was the name under which the company began.