Facebook was the first social-networking business to complete an initial public offering valued above $100 billion.
Facebook went public on the Nasdaq on May 18, 2012, under the ticker symbol FB. The offering price was $38 per share, giving the company a valuation of roughly $104 billion and making it one of the largest technology IPOs in history at that time.
The company was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes in 2004. Its rapid user growth and advertising model helped turn social networking into a major publicly traded technology sector.
The IPO itself experienced technical problems on Nasdaq, including delayed trade confirmations. Facebook later changed its corporate name to Meta Platforms in 2021 to emphasize its focus on virtual and augmented reality, but its original listing made Facebook the relevant name for the 2012 event.