Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, lobbied President Trump and his helpers to solve the federal antitrust action against his society, which is to be in court on April 14.
Mr. Zuckerberg took several trips to the White House and Mar-A-Lago to discuss this matter along with other questions, said two of the people who were not entitled to detect private interviews. Last time he visited the White House on Wednesday morning.
In 2020, the Federal Commercial Commission sued Mr. Trump in 2020 and accused the company of suppressing competition by purchasing young start -ups such as Instagram and WhatsApp, and prevented them from becoming fully suffered companies. The META could be resolved by the court with an agreement. It is not clear whether Mr. Zuckerberg’s efforts led Trump’s administration to consider settling.
Andy Stone, a META spokesman, who also owns Facebook, said that the company “regularly meets politicians to discuss issues affecting competitiveness, national security and economic growth”.
The White House had no comment immediately and FTC refused to express himself. The details of the meetings were reported Previously from the Wall Street Journal.
In its court proceedings, FTC claimed that the Meta had violated the antitrust right by obtaining young rivals and depriving of consumers of alternative social media platforms. FTC argued that the purchase of instagram’s photo to share photo sharing in 2012 for $ 1 billion and its 2014 agreement for an application for sending WhatsApp for $ 19 billion should not be approved.
The company tried to “buy or bury innovators who threaten to overcome Facebook in a new mobile environment,” FTC said in its complaint.
Meta denied the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp to kill the competition and stated that it has invested a significant amount in the development of innovation for applications. Meta also said that they continue to face hard competitions of opponents such as Tiktok, YouTube, Snap and Imessage.
The Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions proved to be a harbinger. Instagram has become a major part of Meta’s business and brought billions of annual income. WhatsApp increased four times to two billion users and began to generate significant income for meta.
In 2021, the federal judge canceled the antimonopoly case, but was soon revived after FTC added further evidence and analysis to support its claims.
Now the attempt is launched in less than two weeks. The court will probably represent testimony from high -ranking management of META, including Mr. Zuckerberg; Sheryl Sandberg, former operating director; and Kevin Systrom, co -founder of Instagram.
Meta executives are preparing intensively for several months and work closely with an external advisor if they are called to testify, two people who are familiar with this matter.
Visits to the White House Mr. Zuckerberg are part of an effort to improve the metal relationship with the government and specifically Mr. Trump, whom he has encountered in the past. In December, Meta announced that she had donated $ 1 million to Mr. Trump’s inauguration fund. And Mr. Zuckerberg promoted Joel Kaplan, Republican and long -time META executive to become the leading of the global public policy of society and to deepen his relations with Trump’s administration.
