After a six-year Federal Trade Commission investigation, the U.S. government’s historic antitrust lawsuit, which claims Meta’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp was unlawful, began Monday in Washington, D.C. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, was the first to come up and defend his business.
According to the FTC, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, attempted to acquire its rivals in order to establish a monopoly. The FTC charges Meta with “anticompetitive conduct” and over-control of the social media market in its lawsuit.
“They decided that competition was too hard,” Daniel Matheson, an FTC attorney, stated in his opening comments on Monday. “And it would be easier to buy out their rivals rather than compete with them.”
Zuckerberg described Facebook’s early history and the competition from the now-defunct MySpace during his first day of testimony. Additionally, he talked on how Meta changed from being centered around friends and family to becoming “more of a broad discovery-entertainment space.”
“It’s the case that over time, the ‘interest’ part of that has gotten built out more than the ‘friend’ part,” Zuckerberg told the jury. “A lot more organizations and other types of stuff are related to users. Although it has decreased significantly, the “friend” component is still important to us.
In his testimony, Zuckerberg, dressed in a dark blue suit and light blue tie, stated that Instagram’s camera technology, not its social network, was the reason he wanted to acquire the company. On Tuesday, Zuckerberg is anticipated to continue his testimony.
In what would be the largest corporate American split since AT&T was forced to give up its telecom monopoly in 1982, which resulted in a flurry of competition in the market, the Silicon Valley social media behemoth may be forced to spin off the two main pillars that generate $164.5 billion in yearly advertising revenue.
Government attorneys cross-examined Zuckerburg, former COO Sheryl Sandberg, and Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri during the trial at the U.S. District Court in the capital. Other social media executives also testified.
Before the expected seven- to eight-week trial, in which the FTC will contend that the then-Facebook purchased the two platforms specifically to “neutralize” competitors in the social media space and maintain an alleged monopoly, the attorneys for both parties made their opening statements in the U.S. district court in the capital.
The “buy or bury” strategy behind the 2012 and 2014 acquisitions was to either acquire or destroy rival businesses that were a real or perceived danger, with the idea that dismantling Meta would have the same effect on social media as AT&T’s dismantling the phone market.
According to Meta, the market’s diversity and vibrancy in 2025 demonstrate otherwise, and it will face fierce rivalry from a wide range of opponents.
The business argues it is being targeted because of its success and refutes allegations that it misled FTC authorities to obtain their approval for the takeovers.
“The company will prove in court what every 17-year-old in the world knew,” said Christopher Sgro, a spokesman for Meta, “that Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp compete with Chinese-owned TikTok, YouTube, X, iMessage and many others.”
“More than 10 years after the FTC reviewed and cleared our acquisitions, the commission’s action in this case sends the message that no deal is ever truly final,” Sgro stated.
According to reports, Zuckerberg met with President Donald Trump during the last two weeks in an attempt to persuade him to reach a settlement out of court.
Since Trump’s election, he has made several changes at Meta, such as eliminating content moderation, contributing $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, and giving him $25 million to prevent him from suing over his ban from Facebook and Instagram following the January 6th federal building storm.
From Trump’s new FTC chief Andrew Ferguson to federal judge James Boasberg, who has argued with Trump over his use of a 200-year-old law to deport suspected members of a Venezuelan gang but previously dismissed an earlier FTC suit to disband Meta in 2021, the dynamics of the major players are generating a lot of conjecture.
Boasberg once again cast doubt on the FTC’s case when he cleared it to move forward in 2022, stating that the commission “may well face a tall task down the road in proving its allegations.”
As recently as November, he stated that there were legitimate concerns about whether the commission’s claims “could hold up in the crucible of trial” and that the FTC’s “positions at times strain this country’s creaking antitrust precedents to their limits.”
Though he has stated that he will follow Trump’s instructions, Ferguson, who was appointed to the committee by former President Joe Biden and elevated to chairman by Trump, is reportedly looking forward to the challenge.
Source: UPI
