Meta has faced a historic antitrust trial that could force the tech giant to break off Instagram and WhatsApp.
Meta on Monday, April 14, 2025, faced a high-stakes antitrust trial in Washington, in which the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused Meta of illegally establishing a social media monopoly by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp.
The FTC argued that Meta has maintained a monopoly by pursuing CEO Mark Zuckerberg's strategy, "expressed in 2008: "It is better to buy than compete." True to that maxim, Facebook has systematically tracked potential rivals and acquired companies that it viewed as serious competitive threats.
According to the FTC complaint, Facebook made policies to make it difficult for smaller rivals to enter the market and “neutralise perceived competitive threats.”
However, the FTC has a narrow definition of Meta's competitive market, excluding companies like TikTok, YouTube and Apple's messaging service from being considered rivals to Instagram and WhatsApp.
Meta stated, “The evidence at trial will show what every 17-year-old in the world knows: Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp compete with Chinese-owned TikTok, YouTube, X, iMessage and many others.”
While the FTC may face an difficulty in proving its case, the stakes are high for Meta, whose advertising business could be cut in half if forced to spin off Instagram.
According to Emarketer analyst Jasmine Enberg, “Instagram is now Meta’s biggest money maker in the US, its most lucrative market, where the app accounts for 50.5% of the company’s ad revenues in 2025. Instagram has also been picking up the slack for Facebook on the user front, particularly among young people, for a long time.”
“The trial also comes as Meta is trying to bring back OG Facebook to appeal to Gen Z and younger users as they join social media. Social media usage is far more fragmented today than it was in 2012 when Facebook acquired Instagram, and Facebook isn’t where the cool college kids hang out anymore. Meta needs Instagram to continue growing, especially as more advertisers think Instagram-first with their Meta budgets,” Enberg added.
It is worth mentioning that Meta's fate will be decided by US District Judge James Boasberg.
