Meta Platforms first exceeded a $1 trillion market capitalization among social-media companies.
Meta Platforms passed the $1 trillion mark in July 2021, when it was still known as Facebook. The company’s share price rose as investors valued its enormous user base and advertising business across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and fellow Harvard students in 2004. It later acquired Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, giving the company several of the world’s largest social and messaging services.
Meta changed its corporate name from Facebook to Meta Platforms in October 2021. The rebrand emphasized the company’s interest in virtual and augmented reality, but advertising remained its main source of revenue. The $1 trillion figure describes the public market value of the parent company, not the value of any individual platform.