Who Owns Facebook?
Last October, Facebook, the company at the head of the social network of the same name, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus, officially changed its name to Meta to clearly reflect the new focus of the group. After a decade of representing the largest active reality in the field of social media, now the former Facebook is completely turned towards the theme of the metaverse and every fiber of the company seems to be looking in that direction.
What does all this mean? To understand what is going on, we have to go back to October 29, when the CEO announced that Facebook (the company, not the social network!) would change its name to Meta. The colossus came from a critical period. For all those who might remember, there was a large-scale scandal that involved not only the blackout of all the apps but also the heavy accusations from a former employee, Frances Haugen. According to him, the social network favored online hatred, putting profits ahead of safety.
This new name changes little or nothing to the users. All the data usages and Term & Conditions remain the same as per stated on the displayed link of this app.
Why Meta? The reference is clearly to the Metaverse, the new technology where the virtual presence will be equivalent and parallel to the physical one, thanks to a virtual reality device. Zuckerberg has already embarked on a path to land in a new digital age.
Basically the metaverse is a virtual space where people wearing virtual or augmented reality devices can interact with each other through avatars, play games, participate in events, concerts, conferences, etc.
Since the moment of the name change from Facebook Holding to Meta in October 2021, we are no longer facing a social media company, but a metaverse company. Mark Zuckerberg’s plans are now clearer, as of why Facebook bought Oculus in 2014, a virtual reality startup that produces the Oculus Rift headset, for $ 2 billion.
At the time, the CEO of Facebook explained that the intention was to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences besides gaming.
Zuck intended to offer users a sharing of unlimited spaces and experiences, an immersive reality that becomes part of the daily life of billions of people. Not just the ability to look at the internet, but to experience it. Now those projects are really taking shape.
May 18th, 2012, marks the day when the initial public offering of Facebook took place. The IPO, which peaked at over $104 billion in market value, was one of the largest in the history of technology and the Internet.
There were 412,861,942 shares of Class B common stock and 2,309,080,018 shares of Class A common stock outstanding as of January 28, 2022, for Meta Platform.
3258 shareholders of Meta Platforms held Class A common stock, while 32 shareholders of Facebook held Class B common stock, as per the most recent annual report of the company.
Facebook’s Top Ten Shareholders
Mark Zuckerberg
The founder of Facebook holds the largest chunk of the company’s shares and has sold $1.6 billion worth of them in 2016 alone. His remaining shares have a current value of $71 billion, making him one of the wealthiest people on earth today (he also owns Instagram).
In addition to being CEO, Zuckerberg is also one of Facebook’s largest shareholders—the majority stakeholder who can influence how decisions are made at Facebook (and could even replace another stakeholder if he doesn’t like what they’re doing). So while Mark Zuckerberg may not technically be in charge anymore, his influence remains strong.
Jim Breyer & Accel Partners
Although his company, Accel Partners, owns the Facebook share, Jim Breyer plays a significant role in the company’s growth and serves as its public face. His current ownership in Facebook amounts to a healthy 11.4%, or around $11.4 billion, if you haven’t figured it out yet.
Breyer is an American venture capitalist and a partner of Accel Partners, considered as one of the 10 smartest people in technology by Fortune Magazine in August 2010. Of course he had made good moves prior to the investment which had guaranteed a great amount of wealth and success.
Dustin Moskovitz
Moskovitz was one of the site’s co-founders back in the day, together with Mark Zuckerberg. In 2008 he left Facebook to proceed with his own personal projects involving “Path”, a pretty successful mobile photo-sharing site.
Considering the company’s current valuation, Dustin still has a 7.6% share in it, which will likely be worth $7.6 billion. Recalling that he is only 8 days younger than Mark, he is considered the youngest billionaire in the world.
Digital Sky Technologies
Yuri Milner, the man that founded Digital Sky Technologies had a clear vision: to create an enterprise that would focus only on investments in the internet sector. He started with a $200 million investment, and continued by incorporating Zynga games and in the meantime also by buying shares from the employees.
Yuri Milner and Digital Sky Technologies hold 5.4% of the shares, while counting $7.6 billion.
Eduardo Saverin
Eduardo Saverin was one of the co-founders of Facebook but lost his share through legal wrangling with Zuckerberg. He was also a co-founder at Ape Corp which became Napster and Plaxo (which was eventually bought by Comcast). He invests in tech startups in Asia, most notably 99taxis, Brazil’s Uber equivalent and Qwiki which was acquired by Yahoo! for $50 million. He has a stake in Facebook worth about $5 billion.
Sean Parker
American businessman and philanthropist Sean Parker, is best known for co-creating the file-sharing website Napster and operating as the early president of the social networking site Facebook.
Parker owns 4% of the total Facebook shares which might seem like a small piece but in terms of gains, it translates into $4 billion. Some consider this share as a fairly deserved win for the contribution he provided to the social network. With the experience he had gained from Napster and his early role as a Friendster advisor, he had many great ideas when serving as the first Facebook president. The famous platform it’s not his only source of money. Lately, he invested $15 million in Spotify, a service that competes with the new version of Napster.
Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel, an investor in PayPal and Facebook, is the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, an analytics firm. He also holds a stake in Facebook worth $3 billion.
As it turns out, Thiel bought his shares at a discount price when they were first listed on NASDAQ in 2005—a move that allowed him to become one of the largest individual shareholders in Facebook.
In addition to making a fortune from his stake in Facebook, Thiel is also quite the philanthropist. He has donated millions of dollars to worthy causes such as Singularity University and the Seasteading Institute—both of which are dedicated to finding new solutions for mankind’s future.
Bill Gates Aka Microsoft
Did you know that Microsoft initially bought 1.6% of the shares? Yes, it’s true! In 2008 the former invested into the platform, paying $240 million.
They now own only 1.3% of them as part of the shares have been dispersed. At the time when this transaction happened, it skyrocketed the value of Facebook investors’ holdings. According to Microsoft and Facebook officials, they met in many places over several months before deciding on the deal and progressed toward closing by text messaging each other on their phones. According to the sources, the final negotiations were completed in Palo Alto, in Facebook’s offices.
Chris Hughes
In the early years of the company, Hughes and Mark Zuckerberg shared a dorm room at Harvard. The former, spent three years working for Facebook before moving to another project in 2007, when he started to work for then-candidate for president Barack Obama. With his considerable grasp of social media, Chris truly did contribute significantly to Obama’s promotion. He owns 1% of the company, which might sound like a small percentage but as you start calculating, you can clearly visualize that 1% equals $1 billion.
Li Ka-shing
When Facebook was valued at $15 billion in 2008, Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing saw a great opportunity and seized it, by investing $120 million into the company. This smart move secured him no less than 0.8% of company shares, an investment that has grown at least 7 times more in profit, from that initial payment. We are now talking about nothing less than $800 million.
Seeing this great growth, would you also invest part of your gains on Facebook shares in 2022?
Key Takeaways
The question of who owns Facebook is a fascinating one. There are many different stakeholders with different interests. But, we think it’s important to remember that their role as a shareholder doesn’t end when they sell their shares and move on from the company. They have an obligation to keep an eye on how Facebook is shaping global society and providing opportunities for everyone around the world.
- Facebook is now Metaverse, focused on virtual presence
- In Meta you will find both Class A and Class B type of shares
- Zuckerberg still hold the majority of Class B shares
Anyone from The Social Network you expected to see on this list and didn’t? Let us know in the comments below?
Vjola Canka
