What was the original name of the company now known as Meta Platforms?

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What was the original name of the company now known as Meta Platforms? Its original name was TheFacebook, Inc.

The business was established in 2004 around the social-networking website TheFacebook, which Mark Zuckerberg launched at Harvard on February 4 of that year. The company’s early identity reflected the site’s purpose: a digital version of a student “face book,” a directory of names and photographs.

In 2005, the company changed its name to Facebook, Inc. That change followed the purchase of the Facebook.com domain and the removal of “the” from the public brand. Facebook, Inc. remained the corporate name through the company’s major expansion into advertising, mobile services, and acquisitions such as Instagram and WhatsApp.

In October 2021, Facebook, Inc. became Meta Platforms, Inc. The rebrand emphasized Mark Zuckerberg’s stated focus on building the metaverse. The company name is not the same as the original website name: “TheFacebook” describes the early service, while “TheFacebook, Inc.” is the stored corporate answer.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026

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