Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (/ˈzʌkərbɜːrɡ/; born May 14, 1984) is an American businessman who co-founded the social media service Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms, of which he is the chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling shareholder.

Zuckerberg briefly attended Harvard College, where he launched Facebook in February 2004 with his roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.

According to Forbes, as of February 2025, Zuckerberg's estimated net worth stood at US$254.1 billion, making him the second richest individual in the world,[2] behind Elon Musk and before Jeff Bezos.

A film depicting Zuckerberg's early career, legal troubles and initial success with Facebook, The Social Network, was released in 2010 and won multiple Academy Awards.

[6] In his second year, he wrote a program that he called CourseMatch, which allowed users to make class selection decisions based on the choices of other students and help them form study groups.

[19] On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com, in partnership with his roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.

[54] Alongside other American technology figures such as Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook, Zuckerberg hosted visiting Chinese politician Lu Wei, known as the "Internet czar" for his influence in the enforcement of China's online policy, at Facebook's headquarters on December 8, 2014.

The founder and CEO explained that he does not believe Facebook is a waste of time, because it facilitates social engagement, and participating in a public session was so that he could "learn how to better serve the community".

[61][62] In January 2019, Zuckerberg laid plans to integrate an end-to-end encrypted system for three major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

[68][69] Zuckerberg is a board member of the solar sail spacecraft development project Breakthrough Starshot, which he co-founded with Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking in 2016.

[75][76] In June 2010, Paul Ceglia, the owner of a wood pellet fuel company in Allegany County, upstate New York, filed suit against Zuckerberg, claiming 84 percent ownership of Facebook and seeking monetary damages.

[77][78] On October 26, 2012, federal authorities arrested Ceglia, charging him with mail and wire fraud and of "tampering with, destroying and fabricating evidence in a scheme to defraud the Facebook founder of billions of dollars".

In January 2017, Zuckerberg filed eight "quiet title and partition" lawsuits against hundreds of native Hawaiians to claim small tracts of land that they owned within his acreage.

[82] Zuckerberg responded to criticisms in a Facebook post, stating that the lawsuits were a good faith effort to pay the partial owners of the land their "fair share".

[88] On October 1, 2020, the US Senate Commerce Committee unanimously voted to issue subpoenas to the CEOs of three top tech firms, including Zuckerberg, Google's Sundar Pichai and Twitter's Jack Dorsey.

During the hearing, he was questioned about Facebook's handling of user data, its role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol Building, and its efforts to combat misinformation and hate speech.

The hearing was part of a broader effort by Congress to hold tech companies accountable for their role in shaping public discourse and protecting user privacy.

[90] In a January 2024 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on child safety and social media platforms, Zuckerberg, along with other tech CEOs, were questioned about their companies' practices.

Internal communications disclosed in the Massachusetts-initiated legal action depict Zuckerberg's resistance to better protect over 30 million teens on Instagram in the U.S., highlighting his substantial influence on Meta's decisions impacting billions of users.

[97] Upon winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture on January 16, 2011, producer Scott Rudin thanked Facebook and Zuckerberg "for his willingness to allow us to use his life and work as a metaphor through which to tell a story about communication and the way we relate to each other".

[98] Sorkin, who won for Best Screenplay, retracted some of the impressions given in his script:[99] In January 2011, Zuckerberg made a surprise guest appearance on Saturday Night Live, which was hosted by Jesse Eisenberg.

"[102][103] According to David Kirkpatrick, former technology editor at Fortune magazine and author of The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the World (2011),[104] "the film is only 40% true ... he is not snide and sarcastic in a cruel way, the way Zuckerberg is played in the movie."

According to CNET, he was portrayed as "a rosy-cheeked bully nerd who utters strange noises, makes peculiar kung fu gestures and turns up wherever he likes in people's houses".

[130] Instead of forming a charitable corporation to donate the value of the stock to, as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and other billionaires have done, Zuckerberg and Chan chose to use the structure of a limited liability company (LLC).

[134][135][136] To increase access to scientific research and promote open science, CZ Biohub requires its investigators and staff scientists to publish submitted manuscripts and related data on preprints servers such as bioRxiv.

[153] In 2013, numerous liberal and progressive groups, such as The League of Conservation Voters, MoveOn.org, the Sierra Club, Democracy for America, CREDO, Daily Kos, 350.org, and Presente and Progressives United agreed to either not buy or pull their Facebook ads for at least two weeks, in protest of ads funded by FWD.us that were in support of oil drilling and the Keystone XL pipeline, and in opposition to Obamacare among Republican United States senators who back immigration reform.

"[155] In June 2013, Zuckerberg joined Facebook employees in a company float as part of the annual San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Celebration.

[198] That same year, he put the yacht into operation; it emits 40 tons of carbon dioxide per hour,[199] which runs counter to his own call for "stopping climate change".

[202][203][204] Writing for Vanity Fair, Kase Wickman described Zuckerberg's "new look" as a "MAGA rebrand", claiming that his change in fashion parallels Meta's efforts to appease the Trump administration.

[213] Four months later, Zuckerberg announced that he was preparing to make his MMA debut but had suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury in training that required surgery and had delayed this.