Meta Platforms

Meta Platforms, Inc. is an American technology company based in Menlo Park, California, that owns the social media and messaging services Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and develops virtual and augmented reality products. It reported revenue of $201.0 billion for 2025 in its annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), almost all of it from advertising.

History of Meta Platforms

The company began as Facebook, a social networking website that Mark Zuckerberg launched in 2004 with fellow students at Harvard University. It grew from a campus network into a service open to the public, and it held its initial public offering (IPO) in May 2012. An IPO is the first sale of a company’s shares to outside investors.

Trading in the shares began on May 18, 2012, at an offer price of $38, and the stock closed only slightly above that level on its first day. The offering raised about $16 billion, one of the largest in U.S. history at the time.

Facebook then bought other services that became major platforms. It acquired the photo-sharing app Instagram in 2012 and the messaging service WhatsApp in 2014. In the same period it bought Oculus, a maker of virtual reality headsets, which led to its later work in virtual reality.

On October 28, 2021, Zuckerberg announced at the company’s Connect conference that the parent company would be renamed Meta. Fortune reported that the new name reflected a stronger focus on the metaverse, a term for shared online spaces that people can enter using virtual and augmented reality. The Facebook service itself kept its name.

Products and services of Meta

Meta reports its results in two segments. The first, Family of Apps, includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other apps that help people connect, share and discover content. The second, Reality Labs, develops hardware, software and AI-based experiences, including augmented reality products.

Nearly all of the company’s income comes from selling advertising placements to marketers on its apps. In 2025 advertising brought in $196.2 billion, out of total revenue of $201.0 billion. Reality Labs generated $2.2 billion in revenue.

The annual report says the average number of daily active people across the Family of Apps was 3.58 billion in December 2025, up 7 percent from a year earlier. A daily active person is someone who used at least one of the company’s apps on a given day. Ad impressions, the number of times ads were shown, rose 12 percent in 2025, and the average price per ad rose 9 percent.

The report also describes a goal of using artificial intelligence to deliver what it calls personal superintelligence for everyone.

Corporate structure and operations

Meta’s principal executive offices are at 1 Meta Way in Menlo Park. As of December 31, 2025, it had 78,865 employees, a 6 percent increase from the previous year.

The company’s revenue grew 22 percent in 2025, from $164.5 billion to $201.0 billion. Net income was $60.5 billion in 2025, compared with $62.4 billion in 2024 and $39.1 billion in 2023, so profit fell slightly even as revenue rose.

The Family of Apps segment earned an operating income of $102.5 billion in 2025. Reality Labs recorded an operating loss of $19.2 billion, compared with a loss of $17.7 billion in 2024. The report describes many Reality Labs investments as long-term research and development for products that are not yet on the market and may only be fully realized in the next decade.

The company’s shares are divided into classes with different voting rights. The annual report lists this dual-class structure among the factors that limit the ability of other shareholders to influence corporate matters.

Impact of Meta

Meta’s apps are among the most widely used communication tools in the world. Billions of people use them to message relatives, follow news, run small businesses and join communities. Because so much communication passes through a few platforms, the company’s policies on content, privacy and design affect public life in many countries.

The company also shaped the market for online advertising. Advertisers can target audiences on its platforms by age, interests and location, and they can measure responses to their campaigns. This approach to digital marketing helps small firms reach customers but also depends on the collection of personal data.

Meta’s investments in virtual reality and AI have drawn attention because of their scale. The company has spent tens of billions of dollars on Reality Labs, and it says the work is aimed at the next generation of computing devices.

Because its apps serve people in nearly every country, its rules on content and safety have to work across many languages, cultures and legal systems. That makes decisions about what to allow, label or remove a constant public issue.

Criticism and controversies

Privacy is the most persistent source of regulatory attention. Meta operates under a consent order with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a form of settlement that sets legal obligations for a company. The modified order took effect in April 2020.

The FTC later started a proceeding that seeks changes to that order, including a ban on using data from minors for commercial purposes, changes to the board of directors and limits on launching new products. Meta challenged the process in court. A federal appeals court ruled on May 16, 2025, that the lower court should consider Meta’s arguments, and the case returned to the district court in July 2025.

The annual report also says the FTC has alleged violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a U.S. law on collecting data from children under 13. Meta says that if it loses its challenge, it could face significant limits on launching products or using data from users under 18.

The annual report lists changes in the regulatory environment, including privacy, data protection, consumer protection, antitrust, content and AI rules, among the factors that could affect its results.

The company further reports that it faces class actions and other lawsuits over advertising, antitrust, privacy, security, content, algorithms and the well-being of younger users. Regulators in the European Union, which enforce the General Data Protection Regulation, also receive notices about certain data breaches and privacy issues.

Editorially reviewed by Specialty Digest Editorial TeamLast reviewed November 4, 2026Researched and drafted with AI assistanceReport an issue