Facebook Now Worth More Than Amazon.com, McDonalds In Public Debut
LOS ANGELES (CBS/AP) — With its debut on the stock market Friday, Facebook has become the most valuable U.S. company to ever go public.
The social network's stock is trading up 8 percent Friday, making it worth about $112 billion, more than Amazon.com and McDonalds.
The company's 28-year-old CEO Mark Zuckerberg rang the opening bell from Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, following an all-night "hackathon" where engineers stayed up coding software and conjuring up new ideas for Facebook and its 900 million users.
"Right now this all seems like a big deal. Going public is an important milestone in our history. But here's the thing, our mission isn't to be a public company. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected," Zuckerberg said. "In the past eight years, all of you out there have built the largest community in the history of the world. You done amazing things that we never would have dreamed of and I can't wait to see what you guys all do going forward."
Facebook's IPO will certainly help California, which is staggering from a nearly $16 billion budget gap. The state will receive up to $1.6 billion from Facebook going public, state deputy legislative analyst Jason Sisney told KNX 1070.
Podcast
The social networking company is on the minds of many California officials, including Gov. Jerry Brown. Brown, however, apparently forgot to rent "The Social Network," mistakenly telling "CBS This Morning" that Facebook was invented in the Golden State.
Facebook was actually developed while Zuckerberg was a student at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Mass.
(TM and © Copyright 2012 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
