Ever since Donald Trump returned to office in January, the tone from Silicon Valley has noticeably shifted. We’ve seen several companies, including Meta, quietly roll back their DEI initiatives, and at the same time, CEOs are being a lot more vocal about their political alignment or, at least, their intentions.
One of the most unexpected moves came from Mark Zuckerberg, who had recently openly admitted that Facebook did censor content during the Biden administration and that the company’s new stance is to work more closely with the current (Trump) government to push back against growing censorship concerns.
But while Zuck’s been busy playing political chess, a new report from the Wall Street Journal suggests he may have overplayed his hand at the White House, particularly with his lobbying efforts to resolve Meta’s upcoming antitrust trial over the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
The trial is locked in for April 14, 2025, and stems from a lawsuit first filed by the FTC in December 2020. The FTC claims that the acquisitions of Instagram (2012) and WhatsApp (2014) were all about "neutralizing emerging threats" instead of competing fairly.
According to a 2024 Memorandum Opinion from the U.S. District Court [PDF], internal communications show that by 2012, Zuckerberg was nervous about Instagram. He described Facebook as “very behind” and said it was “really scary” how fast Instagram was growing. He floated the idea that Meta should “consider paying a lot of money” because it had features and momentum that Facebook lacked.
In his own words, Zuck said acquiring Instagram and other startups would help Meta “neutralize a potential competitor” and protect core use cases from being lost.
Meta also feared that messaging could evolve into full-fledged social networks, just like it had in Asia, with services like LINE and WeChat. One Meta exec literally said the idea of WhatsApp expanding into social networking “kept him awake every night.”
If the court sides with the FTC, Meta could be forced to spin off both Instagram and WhatsApp, which would be a massive shake-up, not just for the company but for the entire social media landscape. That said, winning the case won’t be easy. According to the WSJ, experts say the FTC will need to prove that Meta’s strategy directly harmed competition or consumers, which is a high bar.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
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