Meta replaced Facebook as the corporate identity of the social-media company in 2021.
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced the change on October 28, 2021. The company kept Facebook as the name of its social-networking app, while Meta became the parent-company name reflecting its emphasis on building the metaverse.
The rebranding did not create a new public company or erase Facebook’s products. Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Facebook remained part of the same corporate group, and investors continued to trade the company’s shares under the same stock-market listing.
Meta is regularly included in lists of the world’s largest companies by market capitalization. The name change is therefore a useful way to distinguish the corporation from Facebook, which is now one of its major platforms.