Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the witness stand to defend his social media company in the historic antitrust trial.
According to BBC, the billionaire on Monday, April 14, 2025, defended Meta against the Federal Trade Commission allegation that his company operates a social media monopoly.
The allegation of the social media monopoly was initially brought by the FTC in 2020 during the final days of US President Donald Trump’s first term. The competition watchdog alleges Meta of unfairly dominating the market with Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014.
The FTC wants the company to spin off Instagram or WhatsApp, while Meta argues that there is plenty of competition in the market in the form of apps like TikTok, X, and YouTube.
The tech giant was the first witness in the landmark trial that is expected to last for two months.
The FTC pointed to Zuckerberg's emails from 2011 in which he said, “Instagram seems like it's growing quickly.”
In the other email the same year, he wrote that the company was "so far behind that we don't even understand how far behind we are... I worry that it will take us too long to catch up."
The 40-year-old defended his statements by saying that it was a “relatively early" conversation about buying the app, but over the years Meta has improved Instagram.
He also said that he wanted to buy the photo-sharing app because of its camera technology, not because of its social network.
Meanwhile, FTC lawyer Daniel Matheson, in his opening statement, alleged, “They decided that competition was too hard and it would be easier to buy out their rivals than to compete with them.”
Meta’s attorney Mark Hansen countered the “misguided” acquisitions, saying that the company "acquired Instagram and WhatsApp to improve and grow them alongside Facebook."
Zuckerberg's testimony will continue on Tuesday, April 15, 2025.
Notably, Meta is not the only technology company in the sights of federal antitrust regulators, as Google and Amazon are also facing cases.
