Zuckerberg defends Instagram purchase at monopoly trial
April 15, 2025
Zuckerberg defends Instagram purchase in Meta monopoly trial
ReutersMeta boss Mark Zuckerberg defended his company’s purchases of photo-sharing app Instagram and messaging service WhatsApp in testimony on Tuesday.
He took the witness stand for a second day in a landmark monopoly case brought by the Federal Trade Commission in Washington.
Lawyers for the FTC asked Mr Zuckerberg if Meta could have built its own app to compete with Instagram instead of buying the competitor.
“I’m sure we could have built an app,” he responded. “Whether it would have succeeded or not I think is a matter of speculation.”
“Building a new app is hard,” Mr Zuckerberg said when asked about a 2012 email he sent to Facebook’s then-Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.
In the email displayed by the FTC, Mr Zuckerberg had written to Sandberg: “Instagram is growing so much faster than us that we had to buy them for $1 billion.”
At the time, his company was developing an Instagram competitor called Facebook Camera.
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The email also referenced Facebook’s Messenger which Mr Zuckerberg wrote wasn’t “beating WhatsApp.” The company acquired WhatsApp two years later.
“Many more times than not, when we’ve tried to build a new app, it hasn’t gotten a lot of traction,” Mr Zuckerberg said in the Washington, DC court Tuesday.
The FTC is trying to prove that Meta unfairly dominated the market through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The US antitrust watchdog is seeking a breakup of the company.
Meta claims there’s plenty of competition in social media, including from apps such as TikTok, X, and YouTube.
In testimony Monday, Zuckerberg said he wanted to buy Instagram because of its camera technology, not because of its social network.
But the app is now one of the company’s most important properties.
Instagram was expected to account for more than half of Meta’s advertising revenue in the US in 2025. according to research firm Emarketer.
The antitrust trial is expected to draw several high-profile witnesses in addition to Mr Zuckerberg.
Ms Sandberg and Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom also are expected to take the stand in the trial, which is set to last for several weeks.
US District Judge James Boasberg is presiding and will rule in the case. If he sides with the FTC, the case will enter a second phase aimed at determining how to remedy Meta’s alleged monopoly.
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