Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg considered spinning off Instagram in 2018 due to growing antitrust concerns, according to court documents revealed during his testimony in a high-stakes federal trial on Tuesday.
“I wonder if we should consider the extreme step of spinning Instagram out as a separate company,” Zuckerberg wrote in a memo displayed during his second day of testimony in Washington. The revelation came as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) pursues its case to unwind Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
In the memo, Zuckerberg acknowledged that consolidating Meta’s apps would likely yield “strong business growth” but cautioned it could simultaneously erode Facebook’s value and potentially trigger regulatory action.
“As calls to break up big tech companies grow, there is a non-trivial chance that we will be forced to spin out Instagram and perhaps WhatsApp in the next 5-10 years anyway,” Zuckerberg wrote, specifically noting concerns about potential action from “the next Democratic president.”
Meta ultimately kept Instagram and proceeded with plans to integrate its portfolio of applications, but the memo provides striking evidence of how seriously Zuckerberg viewed the antitrust threat that has now materialized.
“Buy or Bury” Strategy Under Scrutiny
During testimony, Zuckerberg made another potentially damaging admission when questioned about Meta’s acquisition strategy.
“We were doing a build vs. buy analysis” regarding a camera app, Zuckerberg testified. “I thought that Instagram was better at that, so I thought it was better to buy them.”
This statement appears to support the FTC’s allegations that Meta employed a “buy or bury” approach to eliminate potential competitors. The case follows years after earlier revelations of Zuckerberg’s 2008 email stating “it is better to buy than compete.”
The Meta CEO also acknowledged the company’s struggles with developing successful applications internally. “Building a new app is hard and many more times than not when we have tried to build a new app, it hasn’t gotten a lot of traction,” he testified, adding, “We probably tried building dozens of apps over the history of the company and the majority of them don’t go anywhere.”
Meta’s Defense and Market Definition
Meta’s legal team maintains that Zuckerberg’s past intentions aren’t relevant to the case, arguing the FTC has incorrectly defined the social media market and failed to account for significant competition from platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Apple’s messaging services.
The FTC contends Meta holds a monopoly on platforms where users share content with friends and family, with only minimal competition from Snapchat and smaller players like MeWe. According to the FTC’s argument, platforms where users broadcast content to strangers based on shared interests such as X, TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit represent distinct market segments.
This case represents a critical test of antitrust enforcement against technology giants as regulatory scrutiny of Big Tech continues to intensify across administrations.
