By Mark Zuckerberg in September 2025. Photo: Jeff Sainlar; Social Producer and Editor, Meta / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Mark Zuckerberg began his career in a Harvard dormitory and now runs one of the largest technology companies in the world. As chairman, chief executive and controlling shareholder of Meta Platforms, he oversees Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads. The company also has a Rocky Mountain footprint: Meta is building a large data center outside Cheyenne, Wyoming.
From Dobbs Ferry to Harvard
Zuckerberg was born May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York, and grew up in nearby Dobbs Ferry. His father, Edward, is a dentist, and his mother, Karen Kempner, is a psychiatrist. He has three sisters: Arielle, Randi and Donna. He started at Ardsley High School, then transferred to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where he captained the fencing team and graduated in 2002.
He entered Harvard that fall to study psychology and computer science. On Feb. 4, 2004, he launched “Thefacebook” with roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The site spread to other campuses, and the company moved to Palo Alto, California. Peter Thiel invested that year. Zuckerberg left Harvard in his second year to work on the company full time.
An early dispute followed him. The Winklevoss twins and Divya Narendra sued over the origins of the idea. The case settled in 2008 for $20 million in cash and 1.2 million shares.
Building a company
Facebook went public in May 2012, with Zuckerberg holding a majority of the shares. That same year the company bought Instagram for about $1 billion in cash and stock. In 2014 it announced a $19 billion deal for WhatsApp, completed in October, and bought the virtual reality company Oculus VR for $2.3 billion.
On Oct. 28, 2021, at the Facebook Connect conference, the company introduced its new name, Meta Platforms, along with a focus on the metaverse. Its headquarters remain in Menlo Park, California. Meta’s products now include Quest headsets, Ray-Ban Meta glasses and the Llama family of AI models.
A Wyoming footprint
Meta announced in July 2024 that it would build an $800 million data center at the High Plains Business Park, south of Cheyenne. Wyoming Public Media reported that the project was expected to employ more than 1,000 skilled trades workers during construction, with about 100 permanent operations jobs once finished. The facility was meant to improve the performance of AI systems behind Meta’s apps, and the company planned to work with Black Hills Energy to add grid resources, including renewables. Oregon-based Fortis Construction was named as the builder, and the center was expected to come online in 2027.
Gov. Mark Gordon called the project a win for the state. Cheyenne already hosted three Microsoft data centers. Zuckerberg is not reported to have a personal tie to Wyoming or Colorado; the connection is the company’s.
Giving, land and scrutiny
Zuckerberg married Priscilla Chan in 2012. In December 2015 the couple pledged 99 percent of their Facebook shares, then worth about $45 billion, to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, of which he is co-chief executive. The initiative gave $600 million in 2016 to create the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub.
In 2014 he bought 700 acres on Kauai, Hawaii. Quiet title lawsuits he filed in 2017 against native Hawaiians holding small parcels drew criticism, and he dropped them. He bought 110 more acres in 2021 for $17 million.
His public record includes regulatory and legal fights. In April 2018 he testified before the Senate Commerce Committee about the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. At a Senate hearing in 2024 he stood and apologized to families of children harmed online. New Mexico has sued Meta over child safety. The Federal Trade Commission sued Facebook in December 2020 over its acquisitions; according to Wikipedia, a ruling in November 2025 found that Meta did not hold an illegal monopoly.
Sources: Wikipedia entries on Mark Zuckerberg and Meta Platforms; Wyoming Public Media.
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