Facebook Defies Antitrust Warnings With Latest Startup Deal
- Social-media giant is sitting on almost $50 billion cash hoard
- Past deals for innovative startups are getting close scrutiny
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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Facebook Inc. sent a clear signal with its agreement to buy a brain computing startup: heightened regulatory scrutiny and intensifying antitrust probes won’t slow down its pace of acquisitions.
With its announcement Monday of plans to purchase CTRL-Labs for at least $500 million, Facebook continued its pattern of snapping up promising startups in new markets, the very behavior that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is already investigating at the company.