Antitrust trial puts Meta’s vast empire under breakup threat

In a packed Washington courtroom on Monday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched its high-stakes antitrust case against Meta, aiming to dismantle what it calls an illegal monopoly.

The FTC accuses the social media titan of acquiring Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 with the sole purpose of subsuming or crushing competition.

In his opening remarks, the FTC’s lead litigator in the case, Daniel Matheson said, “For more than 100 years, American public policy has insisted firms must compete if they want to succeed. The reason we are here is that Meta broke the deal”. The FTC claims that Meta’s actions deprived consumers of alternative social networking options and stifled innovation in the sector.

Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was present to testify during the trial, with former COO Sheryl Sandberg and Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom expected to testify this week.

Meta's lawyers countered the allegations, claiming that the company operates in a highly competitive environment against platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn. Whilst asserting that “Meta has no monopoly,” Meta’s lead counsel Mr. Hansen also characterised the FTC's legal action as, “..a grab bag of FTC theories at war with fact and at war with the law,” and confidently predicted that the facts would prove the FTC’s theories to be wrong.

What’s at stake for Meta?

The stakes are high, with Meta’s $1.4 trillion advertising empire hanging in the balance. A loss might force the company to carve off Instagram and WhatsApp into standalone entities, a corporate fracture unseen since the US government broke apart AT&T’s telecom monopoly four decades ago. Such a split could upend Meta’s business model, which thrives on weaving its platforms together to fuel ad revenue.

Meta generated over $160 billion from advertising revenue across all its platforms in 2024, according to recent data from Statista. This figure accounts for the vast majority of the company's total annual revenue of $164.50 billion

Meta’s antitrust woes are not new. Back in late 2020, the FTC, joined by a collection of 46 US states, targeted the company, then known as Facebook, for monopolistic behaviour. A judge dismissed the case in 2021, citing insufficient evidence, but an amended lawsuit gained traction in 2022. The current trial sharpens the focus on Meta’s acquisition playbook, with the FTC arguing it deliberately choked off emerging rivals.

Meta’s case is part of a broader antitrust crackdown on Big Tech in the United States. In 2020, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) challenged Google’s search engine dominance, followed by a 2023 lawsuit targeting its hold over digital advertising. A 2024 ruling declared Google’s search practices illegal, leading regulators to propose drastic measures, including restrictions on Android and a potential sale of Chrome.

Just like Meta and Google, Apple is in court over an antitrust lawsuit brought against it by the US DoJ last year. Regulators are accusing the tech giant of using its tightly controlled iPhone ecosystem to create a monopoly. The DoJ alleges Apple blocks innovative "super" apps, hinders cloud streaming and cross-platform messaging, limits third-party digital wallets, and restricts functionality of non-Apple smartwatches.

With so many antitrust cases ongoing at the same time, there are concerns that they may become overly protracted like the Microsoft antitrust case, which began in 1990 but was decided in 2001.

It will also be interesting to see whether the closeness of Big Tech to the Trump administration will have any impact on the process or the outcome. Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, and Tim Cook made a personal donation of $1 million.