Which company owns the social networks Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp?

Meta Platforms owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The company was known as Facebook, Inc. until it changed its corporate name to Meta Platforms, Inc. in October 2021. The rebranding reflected chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s emphasis on building the metaverse, while Facebook remained the name of one of the company’s major social networks.

Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. Those acquisitions expanded its global reach beyond the original Facebook platform and gave the company several of the world’s largest communication and social-media services.

Meta’s advertising business remains central to its finances, while Reality Labs develops virtual- and augmented-reality hardware and software. A common mistake is calling Instagram or WhatsApp the parent company; both are brands and subsidiaries within Meta’s corporate structure.