Mark Zuckerberg tried to negotiate settlement with FTC in landmark antitrust trial but failed

Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg put $450 million on the table late in March, hoping it would be enough to settle its antitrust case with the Federal Trade Commission, according to The Wall Street Journal.

According to people familiar with the matter who spoke with The Journal on the condition of anonymity, the offer was quickly rebuffed. The FTC had wanted at least $30 billion, far less than the value of the two apps the commission is now saying have become part of a monopoly for Meta: WhatsApp and Instagram.

In a call with the head of the FTC, Zuckerberg reportedly gave the impression that President Donald Trump would have his company’s back. His and Trump’s relationship in the past has been rocky, but the two have since made up after Meta settled a $25 million lawsuit and some policy decisions resulted in Meta reportedly being “brought into the tent.”

It seems the FTC wasn’t moved by Zuckerberg’s counteroffer of $1 billion, hoping the number might be closer to $18 billion. Meta has done everything in its power to avoid the trial, but here we are. The company is currently fighting to save its social media empire, which is valued at $1.3 trillion.

Today, FTC lawyers asked Zuckerberg the simple question: Did you need to buy Instagram, and why didn’t you just build your own Instagram-type app? “I’m sure we could have built an app,” Zuckerberg replied. “Whether it would have succeeded or not I think is a matter of speculation.”

He was quizzed about a 2012 email he had sent to what was then Facebook Inc. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. “Instagram is growing so much faster than us that we had to buy them for $1 billion,” he said — words that certainly sounded like a man intent on taking out the competition. The same missive said he was also concerned that Facebook Messenger wasn’t “beating WhatsApp.”

Zuckerberg’s response today was that his company has tried to build apps from the ground up, but they haven’t always “gotten a lot of traction.” For the FTC, Zuckerberg’s decision to buy instead of create means his company now dominates the social media landscape, to which Meta has pointed out that there is plenty of competition with the likes of TikTok, X, Snap and YouTube.

Whether Trump will intervene remains to be seen. When asked about this, former FTC Chair Lina Khan, who had advanced the antitrust case during the Biden administration, told CNN yesterday that this is “a constant worry that we all need to stay very vigilant about.”

Photo: Flickr

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