‘Facebook Inc.’ has had its corporate name changed. On Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg, one of Facebook’s founders, announced the company’s new corporate name. ‘Meta Inc.’ is the new name.
Mark Zuckerberg was named CEO and Chairman of Meta, Facebook’s new parent company, on Thursday. The rebranding aims to position the social media behemoth as a proponent of the metaverse, which Zuckerberg sees as the internet’s future. Everything is still under Zuckerberg’s control.
The rebranding to Meta, which Zuckerberg announced at the company’s annual Connect conference, has been a closely guarded secret since he formally launched the project just over six months ago. When we spoke the day before Connect, Zuckerberg refused to tell me the name because the small group of employees involved had to sign separate nondisclosure agreements. He stated that he had been considering rebranding the company since purchasing Instagram and WhatsApp in 2012 and 2014, respectively, but that he realized it was time to make the change earlier this year.
At his company’s Connect event on Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company’s new name will be Meta. “We are a company that creates technology to connect,” Zuckerberg explained. “We can finally put people at the center of our technology if we work together.” And by working together, we can create a much larger creator economy.”
Zuckerberg is aware that the timing of this rebranding is questionable. The company has been subjected to an onslaught of criticism in recent weeks as a result of leaked internal documents provided to the media by a former employee named Frances Haugen. Facebook is currently the most scrutinized company in the world, and its image among young people has deteriorated. Distancing the company brand and Zuckerberg from the name Facebook will be viewed as an evasion tactic by many critics.
The current cycle of bad news, according to Zuckerberg, “had nothing to do with this.” Even though I believe some people may wish to make that connection, I believe it is ridiculous. If anything, I believe that this is not the environment in which to launch a new brand.”
