Meta’s Zuckerberg Defends Against Allegations of Monopoly Tactics
WASHINGTON — Meta Platforms Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg testified for a second day Tuesday in a Washington, D.C., court that his company has encouraged the growth of social media but not the anticompetitive dominance alleged by the Federal Trade Commission.
The trial in the antitrust case is expected to last weeks as Meta tries to hang on to its Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp social media platforms.
Federal Trade Commission attorneys argued during the opening day of the trial that Meta should be divested of Instagram and WhatsApp.
They said Meta’s near monopoly on social media that extends worldwide has prevented meaningful competition that could bring better service and more options to consumers.
Federal Trade Commission lawyer Daniel Matheson said in his opening statement, “For more than 100 years, American public policy has insisted firms must compete if they want to succeed. The reason we are here is that Meta broke the deal.”
The evidence presented against Zuckerberg in the first days of the trial included emails indicating what Federal Trade Commission attorneys said demonstrated his strategy that “it’s better to buy than compete.”
One of Meta’s biggest corporate conquests was the 2012 purchase of photo and short-form video sharing social networking service Instagram.
Meta bought the company for $1 billion. Last year, its government regulatory filings show it was valued at $70.4 billion, making Instagram the world’s sixth most valuable media brand.
Digital advertising revenue generated by Instagram and other Meta divisions are contributing to the parent company’s plan to be a leader in artificial intelligence. Zuckerberg said in January the company plans to spend as much as $65 billion this year on artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Just before the purchase of Instagram, an internal email from Zuckerberg suggested Facebook buy the company to “neutralize a potential competitor,” according to evidence presented at the trial in federal court.
A second Zuckerberg email explained his reasoning for buying Instagram by saying, “Instagram was growing so much faster than us that we had to buy them for $1 billion … that’s not exactly killing it.”
Zuckerberg’s company acquired smartphone messaging service WhatsApp in 2014 for $19 billion. It now is valued at more than $100 billion with about 3 billion users worldwide, its regulatory filings show.
Even with multibillion-dollar valuations, Instagram and WhatsApp are only a small part of Meta’s value.
As of this month, Meta reported a market cap of $1.3 trillion, making it the world’s seventh most valuable company. Market cap refers to the total value of a company’s outstanding shares of stock.
Zuckerberg testified in U.S. District Court that he was not trying to engage in illegal antitrust strategies by squelching competition, merely trying to help his company by acquiring apps like Instagram and WhatsApp that already proved they could be successful.
“Building a new app is hard,” Zuckerberg said. “We’ve probably tried building dozens of apps over the history of the company, and the majority of them don’t go anywhere.”
Zuckerberg’s defense team has strong evidence in its favor. Some of it comes from the Federal Trade Commission.
Meta’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp were approved by federal regulators before they were completed. Undoing them more than a decade later would set a dangerous precedent that places many corporate mergers at risk of government intervention, attorneys for Meta argued.
Meta lawyer Mark Hansen said the Federal Trade Commission’s case is “at war with the facts and at war with the law.”
He also denied that Meta represented a near monopoly, mentioning competition from popular social media platforms like TikTok. Other multibillion-dollar social media apps not owned by Meta include YouTube, X, WeChat and Reddit.
If Meta is broken up by court order, it would be the first time for a major corporation since AT&T was split into separate companies 40 years ago.
The Federal Trade Commission lawsuit against Meta is part of a bigger government push against large technology companies that some members of Congress say have become too dominant.
Other federal antitrust lawsuits have been directed at Amazon, Google and Apple.
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