Mark Zuckerberg is an American businessman and computer programmer, best known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Meta Platforms, Inc. Born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York, Zuckerberg showed an early interest in programming and technology. He enrolled at Harvard University in 2002, where in February 2004 he launched the social networking site thefacebook.com, initially for Harvard students. The site quickly expanded to other universities and, later, to the general public, becoming one of the world’s most widely used social media platforms. Zuckerberg co-founded Facebook with several Harvard classmates, including Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. He dropped out of Harvard in 2004 to focus on the company, moving its operations to Palo Alto, California. Under his leadership, Facebook grew rapidly, reaching hundreds of millions of users and going public in 2012. The company later acquired major platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp, significantly expanding its global reach and influence. In October 2021, Zuckerberg announced a corporate rebranding, changing Facebook’s parent company name to Meta Platforms to reflect a strategic focus on building the “metaverse,” a vision of interconnected virtual and augmented reality experiences. As Meta’s CEO, he continues to oversee Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and related technologies, including virtual reality products through the Reality Labs division. Zuckerberg has been a central figure in debates over social media, data privacy, and free expression. In recent years, Meta has made changes to its content policies, including scaling back third-party fact-checking programs on Facebook and Instagram in favor of greater emphasis on free expression. As of late 2025, he remains one of the world’s wealthiest individuals and a key player in shaping the future of digital communication and online platforms.