Meta

Meta Platforms runs Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and Threads, and sells the virtual reality headsets and AI glasses that sit in its Reality Labs segment. It reports two segments: Family of Apps, which includes the apps and other services, and Reality Labs, which covers the virtual and augmented reality hardware, software and content. Substantially all revenue comes from selling advertising placements across the family of apps to marketers; the company states its mission as building the future of human connection and the technology that makes it possible, and says it is investing to deliver what it calls personal superintelligence for everyone.^[1]

Scale is the business. Family daily active people averaged 3.64 billion in September 2026, up 3% year over year, while ad impressions grew 10% and average price per ad rose 14%. Headcount was 66,775 as of September 30, 2026, down 15% from a year earlier.^[2]

Meta completed its initial public offering in May 2012 at $38.00 per share; its Class A stock trades on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under META. Facebook, Inc. offered 180,000,000 Class A shares and selling stockholders offered 241,233,615. TechCrunch put the IPO valuation at $104.12 billion, with the company and its early shareholders raising just over $16 billion. Mark Zuckerberg exercised an option on 60,000,000 Class B shares and sold 30,200,000 of them in the offering, mostly to cover taxes.^[1],[3],[4]

CompaniesMarketCap put Meta's market capitalization at $1.637 trillion as of October 2026. The board has approved a new class of publicly listed, non-voting Class C common stock with an effective date in January 2027, which the special committee said is meant to help the company keep investing for long-term growth under Zuckerberg's control. Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities were $82.45 billion at September 30, 2026.^[5],[2]

Full-year 2025 revenue was $200.97 billion, up 22%, and income from operations was $83.28 billion. For the third quarter of 2026 Meta reported revenue of $64.60 billion, up 26% year over year, with Family of Apps revenue of $64,158 million and Reality Labs revenue of $443 million; Reality Labs lost $4,129 million in the quarter.^[1],[2]

The AI spend is the story for anyone pricing the stock. Capital expenditures including principal payments on finance leases were $34.91 billion in the third quarter, and the company now expects 2026 capital expenditures of $135-145 billion, narrowed from $130-145 billion. It expects full-year 2026 total expenses of $175-179 billion, Reality Labs losses of $18-19 billion in 2026 and around $15 billion next year as it shifts investment toward AI.^[2]

Mark Zuckerberg is founder and CEO, and the company's filings identify the CEO as its chief operating decision maker. In June 2026 Meta named CRED founder Kunal Shah to lead WhatsApp, succeeding Will Cathcart, who stepped down after nearly seven years to take a product-building role. Scale AI co-founder Alexandr Wang left Scale in June 2025 to join Meta and work on its AI efforts.^{[2],[1],[6],[7]}

Meta has no separately branded venture fund in the sources we read; it invests from the balance sheet, usually tied to a hire or a product partnership. In June 2025 Scale AI confirmed a significant investment from Meta valuing it at $29 billion, reported at about $14.3 billion for a 49% stake. In June 2026 Meta led a $900 million financing for Indian fintech CRED, structured as a mix of primary and secondary share purchases, alongside Shah's appointment to WhatsApp.^[7],[6]

In December 2025 Meta agreed to acquire Manus, a Singapore-based AI agent startup, for $2 billion. The deal did not hold: Meta was forced to call off the $2 billion acquisition, and in October 2026 Manus raised more than $500 million in its first funding round since the split.^[8],[9]