Meta Platforms owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp and adopted the name Meta Platforms in 2021.
The company was founded as Facebook in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. Facebook began as a social-networking service for Harvard students before expanding to other universities and then to the general public.
Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. These services gave the company a broad global presence across social networking, photo sharing, messaging, and online advertising. In October 2021, the parent company changed its name to Meta Platforms to emphasize its interest in the metaverse and other long-term technologies.
The name change did not rename Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp. Meta’s market value is strongly linked to digital advertising, user engagement, artificial-intelligence tools, and the growth prospects of its Reality Labs division. Meta Platforms is also distinct from the metaverse itself, which is a broad concept rather than one single product.