Zuckerberg Really Thought Trump Would Make Meta’s Legal Problems Go Away

Meta is presently defending itself successful an antitrust proceedings brought by the Federal Trade Commission implicit allegations that the tech elephantine violated contention laws erstwhile it bought Instagram and WhatsApp. But the much we larn astir the case, it seems wide that CEO Mark Zuckerberg thought President Donald Trump would prevention him from this indignity.

According to a study from the Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg offered to settee the antitrust lawsuit by handing implicit $450 million. The FTC reportedly wanted $30 billion, and FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson wouldn’t settee for thing little than $18 cardinal on with a consent decree, according to the Journal.

Zuckerberg seemingly “sounded assured that President Trump would backmost him up with the FTC,” according to the caller study which quotes anonymous radical who are “familiar with the matter. Zuck’s assurance was seemingly a notation to the information that the Meta CEO’s institution had donated $1 cardinal to Trump’s inauguration and settled a suit with the president for $25 cardinal successful a determination that was mostly seen arsenic a acquisition to Trump.

Zuckerberg, who testified for much than 7 hours Tuesday successful the Facebook co-founder’s 2nd time of testimony, reportedly upped his connection from $450 cardinal to $1 cardinal earlier the proceedings started, according to the Journal. But it wasn’t enough.

The Meta CEO was asked Tuesday astir his acquisition of Instagram backmost successful 2012, and whether it was a determination to “neutralize” a competitor. Meta, formerly known arsenic Facebook earlier Zuck tried to rebrand the full institution astir the metaverse, bought the photo-sharing app astatine a clip erstwhile helium was consolidating powerfulness successful the societal media space. FTC lawyers presented grounds Tuesday that included a memo from Zuck successful 2018 admitting that it was imaginable they’d person to rotation disconnected Instagram and WhatsApp successful the aboriginal implicit antitrust concerns.

“As calls to interruption up the large tech companies grow, determination is simply a non-trivial accidental that we volition beryllium forced to rotation retired Instagram and possibly WhatsApp successful the adjacent 5-10 years anyway,” Zuckerberg wrote astatine the time.

Zuck defended the memo Tuesday, according to tribunal grounds published by the New York Times, saying, “I conscionable wanted to beryllium mindful that we should person a strategy that is creating the astir worth for the radical we’re trying to serve, taking into relationship the absorption that the authorities seemed to beryllium telling you astatine that time.”

Zuck is backmost connected the witnesser basal Wednesday, with the proceedings expected to past 8 weeks. And portion it would beryllium some highly antithetic and unethical for a president to intervene successful a lawsuit similar this, there’s nary telling what could hap if President Trump decides to assistance Meta for 1 crushed oregon another. Zuck has traveled to Mar-a-Lago astatine slightest doubly since the 2024 statesmanlike predetermination and has intelligibly pivoted his governmental sympathies successful a precise nationalist mode to get person to the MAGA universe.

And it’s casual to recognize wherefore Big Tech billionaires deliberation they tin get Trump to play ball. Trump has unlawfully interfered with the FTC since retaking powerfulness connected Jan. 20, 2025, firing 2 Democratic FTC commissioners last month. The FTC committee is made up of 5 people, with nary much than 3 members of a fixed enactment astatine 1 time. Alvaro Bedoya, 1 of the fired commissioners, spoke to Gizmodo past period astir however Big Tech is spending immense sums to payment Trump.

“We are the bureau that enforces the instrumentality against the likes of Amazon, Meta, OpenAI and of people X,” Bedoya told Gizmodo astatine the time. “I deliberation it’s truly important that radical wage attraction to the fact, for example, that Amazon chopped a woody with the First Lady to diagnostic her successful a documentary connected her beingness that would effect successful $28 cardinal of payments to her. And that Amazon besides precocious licensed The Apprentice for tens of millions of dollars.”

Gizmodo reached retired to Meta connected Tuesday but didn’t get a response. The institution was defiant successful a connection to the Wall Street Journal, saying, “We haven’t been shy astir explaining wherefore it doesn’t marque consciousness for the FTC to bring a lawsuit to proceedings that requires it to beryllium thing each 17-year-old successful America knows is absurd—that Instagram doesn’t vie with TikTok.”