"Meta's Epic Journey: From Dorm Room to Digital Empire and Legal Battles"

Meta Platforms, Inc. is a nearly $2 trillion technology giant with a dominant advertising business via its Family of Apps, currently undergoing a strategic pivot with massive capital investment focused on integrating Artificial Intelligence and developing its Reality Labs (Metaverse) segment. The company faces a core existential threat in the U.S. from the landmark antitrust lawsuit (*FTC v. Meta*), which seeks to unwind the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions, arguing they constitute an illegal "buy-or-bury" monopolization strategy. Globally, Meta is under intense scrutiny, enduring billions in GDPR and DMA data privacy fines from European regulators, high-stakes multi-district litigation over social media addiction and youth mental health, and liability lawsuits filed by outsourced content moderators.