Just before Facebook went public on Friday, estranged co-founder Eduardo Saverin posted a message to his page on the site, congratulating his former classmate and the social network’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg- but spelled the name incorrectly.

On the eve of the Facebook public float, 8 plus year in the making, I as co-founder wanted to look back and cherish Facebook’s early beginning. Congrats to everyone involved in the project from day one till today, and I especially wanted to congratulate Mark Zukerberg on keeping tremendous stead-fast focus, however hard that was, on making the world a more open and connected place.

The error was visible on both the English and Portugese versions of the message. (Saverin was born in Brazil.) No word yet on whether Saverin will congratulate “Zukerberg” on his recent nuptials.

Saverin recently stirred controversy by renouncing his US citizenship, just as the Facebook IPO would increase his personal wealth greatly (and subject him to US taxes). Saverin has lived in Singapore since 2009.

The IPO itself underwhelmed some stock observers. Facebook debuted at $38 a share and climbed to $41, before dropping suddenly in the afternoon. The stock prices closed out the day almost where they began, at $38. 23. The Wall Street Journal reports that the company’s underwriters were forced to jump in and buy up shares to inflate their price.

And what did Facebook get for this “disappointing” showing? Only $16 billion, the largest IPO ever for an Internet company.

[via CNET and CNET]

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