Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of META, on Tuesday on Tuesday defended the acquisition of Instagram in 2012, on his second day at a stand at the lower point of the antimonopoly proceedings described as usual for the technology company, describes the transaction as usual.
Businesses weigh the benefits and cost of developing new products against the purchase of start -ups with products they want to add.
When Instagram competed with the now defunct application of his company, “we performed an analysis of Build-Vs.-by,” Zuckerberg said. “I thought Instagram was better in it, so I thought it was better to buy them.”
Mr. Zuckerberg is the central witness of the Antimonopoly Court, in which the government accuses a meta for violating the laws of competition by purchasing WhatsApp and Instagram in the strategy of “Buy or Bury”. On Monday and Tuesday, he spent more than seven hours answering questions from lawyers at the US District Court for Columbia district when they tried to make the case that he considered other applications as opponents he needed to remove.
The case, the Federal Commercial Committee v. Meta Platforms, is a subsequent threat to Mr. Zuckerberg’s business, who co -founded as Facebook in his Harvard dormitory in 2004. FTC asked judge James E. Boasberg. Meta bought Instagram for $ 1 billion and two years later in 2014 WhatsApp worth $ 19 billion.
If successful, the government is likely to ask the judge to divide the meta by ordering to sell both applications.
Mr. Zuckerberg had previously acknowledged the possibility of sales. FTC lawyers introduced an internal e -mail on Tuesday, who wrote in 2018 that warning workers, that antitrust fears could transform the business of meta.
“Given that the challenge to break up large technological societies is growing, there is a non-trivial chance that we will be forced to shoot Instagram and maybe whatsApp in the next 5-10 years,” wrote Mr. Zuckerberg.
On Tuesday he explained: “I just wanted to realize that we should have a strategy that creates the greatest value for the people we try to serve, and take into account the direction in which policy seems to say at that time.”
Legal experts warned that FTC faced a climb uphill. The government asks Judge Boasberg to look back for more than ten years and find that the meta remained powerful by abolishing competitors through its acquisitions. The regulators approved Instagram and WhatsApp at that time and raised questions about why, experts said.
The lawsuit is part of the wider pressure of US regulatory bodies to face the power of the largest technological companies. FTC also sued Amazon and accused him of protecting the monopoly by pressing the seller on his huge market and preferring his own services.
Last year, the Ministry of Justice won a lawsuit accused by Google of maintaining a monopoly in the search, and next week proceedings for correctional measures are set. The department sued Google for its dominance also in technology and. Apple was also the aim of an action by a government that accused her of making it difficult to leave his ecosystem to iPhone and iPad.
During the opening of the META Trial statement on Monday, FTC said that Instagram and WhatsApp’s purchases have consolidated their strength, depriving other social network options and limited the competition.
Meta lawyers have denied the accusations in introductory statements and faced the company that the company is facing great competition from Tiktoku and other social media platforms. An attempt to relax ten years after their approval would create a dangerous precedent, the lawyers added.
On Tuesday, FTC lawyers induced Mr. Zuckerberg to explain the internal communication that preceded the purchase of Instagram and WhatsApp. His notes in more detail concern about how Facebook could compete on mobile devices.
Mr. Zuckerberg often did not remember his thought process for some e -maly during the interrogation, which sometimes became questionable.
In the case of Daniel Matheson, the head of the FTC has pointed to correspondence since 2012 between Mr. Zuckerberg and his top executives in which they traded with sincere ideas of employee performance, potential and previous acquisitions and the threat of UPstart competitors.
In one e -mail, Mr. Zuckerberg told Sheryl Sandberg, the then Chief Operating Director of Meta, that he could teach her to play Catan settlers, a popular board game. He continued to criticize some lieutenants and said that their lagging performance was one of the reasons they needed to buy Instagram for $ 1 billion.
“A billion dollars are very expensive,” Mr. Zuckerberg said at the booth.
In another e -mail, since 2013, Mr. Zuckerberg told managers to block foreign competitors, including popular Asian messages for sending messages such as Kakao and WeChat, from Facebook advertising.
“These companies are trying to build social networks and replace us,” he wrote. “Revenue is irrelevant to us compared to any risk.”
At the stand, where it is expected to restore their testimony on Wednesday, Mr. Zuckerberg constantly pointed out business reasons for buying two young opponents.
“Building a new application is difficult,” he said, asking why he seemed to buy Instagram in one e -mail that was submitted in 2012. “We probably tried to build dozens of applications over the history of the company, and most of them do not go anywhere.”
“We could build an app,” he added. “Whether or not it is a matter of speculation.”
