Innovation & Wealth › The information age › The internet
Facebook / Meta (Mark Zuckerberg)
founded February 2004· Company or fortune· Companies & fortunes
Well documentedSolid records, texts or physical evidence.
Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard dorm-room social network grew into Meta, owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, used by over three billion people daily.
See it on the Innovation & Wealth map →What happened
Zuckerberg launched TheFacebook with classmates in February 2004; it opened to everyone in 2006. Its money comes almost entirely from ads targeted using what people post, like and click: about $164 billion of revenue in 2024. It bought Instagram (2012, $1 billion) and WhatsApp (2014, $19 billion), renamed itself Meta in 2021 and now spends heavily on AI. Zuckerberg's fortune has topped $200 billion; estimates vary. Users got free services and advertisers cheap reach; newspapers lost ad revenue.
Impact on society and the economy
It made personal data the fuel of advertising and reshaped news, politics and friendship, drawing privacy fines and a federal antitrust case.
How we know
Meta's SEC filings, the FTC's 2019 $5 billion privacy penalty after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, court records, congressional testimony and leaked internal research.
Still debated
Research on whether social media harms teens' mental health or deepens political polarization is mixed; scholars disagree about how large the effects are.
Connections (2)
▸Facebook / Meta (Mark Zuckerberg) beat an FTC monopoly suit in Antitrust cases against Google, Meta, Amazon and AppleWell documented
The connection
The FTC argued Meta bought Instagram and WhatsApp to remove rising rivals, citing Zuckerberg's 2008 email that 'it is better to buy than compete.' In November 2025 Judge James Boasberg ruled for Meta: whatever happened earlier, the FTC had not shown Meta holds monopoly power today, since TikTok and YouTube compete for the same users' time.
When and how
Federal court in Washington, D.C.; filed December 2020, dismissed and refiled in 2021, tried April–May 2025, decided November 18, 2025.
How we know
The opinion and trial record, including Zuckerberg's testimony and internal emails, are public.
Debates
Whether the FTC was right about the 2012–2014 deals even though it lost on today's market; the ruling shows how fast TikTok reshaped competition.
▸Facebook / Meta (Mark Zuckerberg) competes for attention with Zhang Yiming and ByteDance (TikTok)Well documented
The connection
TikTok's algorithm-driven feed of short videos pulled young users' time from Facebook and Instagram. Meta answered by copying the format with Instagram Reels (2020) and, The Washington Post reported in 2022, by paying a consulting firm to campaign against TikTok. TikTok's rise was a key reason a federal judge found in 2025 that Meta lacked monopoly power.
When and how
Worldwide from 2018, after TikTok absorbed Musical.ly; Reels launched August 2020; in early 2022 Facebook reported its first-ever drop in daily users.
How we know
User and time-spent data, Meta's earnings statements naming TikTok as a competitor, and court findings in FTC v. Meta.
Debates
Whether US restrictions on TikTok, and its new American-led ownership, will tilt the contest for attention back toward Meta.