On Wednesday, April 17, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stand as the first witness for the third day of the historic antitrust trial against the company. During his appearance, Zuckerberg testified that he bought Instagram and WhatsApp not to take out potential competitors, but because he saw value in the companies, though the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleges otherwise.
The Nature of the Trial
The trial revolves around the FTC’s contention that Meta has a monopoly in its so-called “friend-sharing” technology. The case could result in the tech giant’s separation from Instagram, WhatsApp, or both. While they grew under Meta’s umbrella, these former startups have become social media giants in their own right.
For a significant period, Facebook was known for “acqui-hires,” a deal in which a company purchases a startup for its talent and shuts the company down. Instagram—and later WhatsApp—were the exceptions to this trend. Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $22 billion in 2014.
A New Administration’s FTC
In many ways, the trial will serve as a test of the FTC under Trump. The lawsuit was originally filed back in 2020, still during Trump’s first term. Certainly, the trial will reflect the administration’s ability to address the challenge of big tech and, in all likelihood, many other prominent industries that may have illegal monopolies.
Arguments From Meta’s Side
Zuckerberg took questions from Meta attorney Mark Hansen. The attorney focused his questioning on the argument that Meta faces significant global competition, and that therefore the company should not be considered a monopoly. In his answers, Zuckerberg portrayed his decisions as focused on a simple interest in the emerging companies and how they could be used.
Earlier in the trial, the FTC cited emails sent by Zuckerberg and his associates that appeared to illustrate Facebook’s concern surrounding the growing Instagram platform. The emails suggested that Zuckerberg felt the need to eliminate Instagram as a threat, but the founder sees things differently:
“This is my job,” Zuckerberg said. “I need to understand what is going on, and I need to push our teams to move quickly.”
As part of this argument, Hansen noted that the language Zuckerberg and his team used to refer to Instagram was consistent in emails about other, better-performing companies. In a similar vein, Hansen went on to question Zuckerberg on the competition Meta faces from platforms like ByteDance’s TikTok and Alphabet’s YouTube.
This gave Zuckerberg a chance to explain that people spend more time on YouTube than Facebook and Instagram combined. He stated that YouTube has video-sharing features that function similarly to the friend-sharing technology that distinguishes Facebook from many other companies. In fact, Hansen noted that the FTC doesn’t consider the companies to be competitors.
Stopping Growth or Building Brands?
During his part of the questioning, FTC attorney Daniel Matheson brought up his own communications with Zuckerberg’s associates. He did so to demonstrate that Zuckerberg was more interested in putting a stop to Instagram’s growth, as opposed to the improvement of the product. For his part, Zuckerberg argued that his intent was “having it run as an independent brand.”
