Meta Antitrust hearing: Will Mark Zuckerberg Instagram, Facebook, have to sell? All you need to know | Company Business News

Mark Zuckerberg is facing one of the most important lawsuits on Monday, as a hearing in the US Court against him began on April 14. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has claimed that Zuckerberg’s Meta Instagram and WhatsApp bought in an illegal move. If the Meta CEO does not win the antitrust case, the company may be forced to break itself and sell Instagram and WhatsApp. Mark Zuckerberg vs FTC When the hearing began in Washington on Monday, an FTC attorney bought alleged Facebook parent Meta platforms on the upcoming opponents Instagram and WhatsApp after his attempts to compete, Reuters reported. FTC attorney Daniel Matheson said that the illegal strategy “set up access barriers that protected the dominance of Meta for more than a decade.” He argued that the purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram left consumers without a “reasonable alternatives to which they can turn”. The case, which was brought during the first term of President Donald Trump, claims that Meta bought the companies a decade ago to eliminate competition between social media platforms where users make contact with friends and family. The case poses a possible threat to Meta, which, according to some estimates, earns about half of its US advertising income from Instagram, while the new Trump administration’s promises to enter into great technology, as per Reuters, test. Will Mark Zuckerberg sell Instagram, WhatsApp? According to a BBC report, Meta is confident that it will win the matter and can argue that Instagram’s user experience has become better since it took over. However, if the judge stands together with the FTC and the government in general, Mark Zuckerberg may be forced to break up with Instagram and WhatsApp, and other companies will be notified. However, in a CNN report, it is said that if Donald Trump, who has improved his relationship with Zuckerberg over the years, decides to enter the room, things can take another turn. Reports by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal on April 2 say that Zuckerberg tried to persuade Trump to resolve the FTC case. The report comes on the same day when the Meta owner was spotted in the White House. “Do you remember how Mark Zuckerberg started to visit Trump, while Meta donated $ 1 million to his inauguration? Now Zuckerberg is trying to pay in – according to Trump to resolve the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit against Meta. This is why you always wrote the money, former labor secretary Robert, at X. Meta chief of the legal officer, Jennifer Newstad, the case that has a case, a case, a case. “It is absurd that the FTC is trying to break up a large US company at the same time as the administration tries to save Tiktok in the Chinese possession,” she wrote in a blog post on Sunday. First published: 14 Apr 2025, 22:58 IST