Mark Zuckerberg Could Be Forced To Sell Instagram

A blockbuster antitrust trial kicked off in Washington this week, and the stakes couldn’t be higher: Meta—the company behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp—could be forced to split up its digital empire.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is accusing Meta of buying out the competition rather than beating them. Instagram was snapped up in 2012, WhatsApp in 2014, and the FTC now argues those deals were all part of Mark Zuckerberg’s master plan to squash potential rivals before they got too powerful.

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“The [FTC’s] argument is the acquisition of Instagram was a way of neutralizing this rising competitive threat to Facebook,” explains Rebecca Haw Allensworth, an antitrust professor at Vanderbilt Law School. According to her, Zuckerberg’s own words may haunt him: “He said it’s better to buy than to compete. It’s hard to get more literal than that.”

Meta, naturally, isn’t having it. The company argues that consumers are better off post-acquisition and that Instagram wouldn’t be what it is today without Facebook’s backing. The FTC’s argument? Intent matters. Meta’s counter? Performance does.

“The real question is: are consumers better off as a result of this merger?” says Allensworth, predicting Meta will roll out evidence showing how much Instagram has grown under its wing.

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Expected to take the stand are none other than Zuckerberg himself and Meta’s former COO Sheryl Sandberg. So yes, this trial could get very juicy.

Behind the scenes, the case is entangled in political drama. According to the Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg personally lobbied Donald Trump to kill the lawsuit. While Meta dodged confirming this to the BBC, it clapped back in a statement: “The FTC’s lawsuits against Meta defy reality.”

Things have only grown more chaotic since Trump ousted two Democratic FTC commissioners, leaving the watchdog temporarily in Republican hands. “The president sent a very clear signal… if they don’t want to do a favour for his political allies, they’re on the chopping block as well,” former commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter told the BBC.

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Meanwhile, Meta’s been making moves that have raised more eyebrows—like scrapping its fact-checkers and adding Trump ally Dana White to its board. Subtle? Not really.

But the FTC has its work cut out. Compared to Google’s near-total grip on online search, proving Meta’s dominance in the more crowded social media space is trickier.

“I think they have a real uphill battle,” says Laura Phillips-Sawyer, a business law professor at the University of Georgia. Meta agrees, claiming, “Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp compete with Chinese-owned TikTok, YouTube, X, iMessage and many others.”

Still, if the FTC pulls this off, Zuck could be waving goodbye to Insta. Watch this space.