Meta Platforms owns Facebook, the largest publicly traded social-media platform by monthly active users.
Meta operates Facebook alongside Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. The company changed its corporate name from Facebook, Inc. to Meta Platforms, Inc. in October 2021 to emphasize its broader family of products and its long-term interest in the metaverse.
Facebook began as a social-networking service launched at Harvard in 2004 before expanding to other universities and then the general public. Its enormous user base supports advertising, which has historically provided most of Meta’s revenue.
The corporate name is Meta Platforms, while Facebook remains the name of the social network. Meta’s stock-market value therefore represents the parent company, not a separate publicly traded Facebook corporation.