Meta Faces FTC Trial With Instagram, WhatsApp Breakup at Risk

The US Federal Trade Commission challenge poses an existential threat to Meta Platforms, Inc.'s dominance.Photographer: Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images

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By Josh Sisco, Kurt Wagner, and Riley Griffin

April 9, 2025 at 5:14 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Mark Zuckerberg’s well-timed acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, in 2012 and 2014 respectively, helped his social media empire reach billions of people.

More than a decade later, the US Federal Trade Commission is targeting those deals in a landmark antitrust lawsuit set to go to trial Monday, alleging that the acquisitions were illegal, should never have been approved and should be broken up.