Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Lobbies Donald Trump to Avoid Antitrust Trial: Report

The FTC is at the forefront of an antitrust crackdown on Big Tech companies that began during Trump's first term.

By Reuters | Updated: 3 April 2025 14:33 IST

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Lobbies Donald Trump to Avoid Antitrust Trial: Report

Photo Credit: Unsplash/ Dima Solomin

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson plans to continue pursuing the agency's cases against Meta, Amazon

Highlights

Meta said it regularly meets with policymakers
The FTC is at the forefront of an antitrust crackdown on Big Tech firms
Meta argues the acquisitions have been good for competition and consumers

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg is lobbying US President Donald Trump to agree to a settlement that would prevent the company from facing an antitrust trial later this month, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Meta and its representatives met with the president and his senior advisers ahead of an April 14 Federal Trade Commission trial that could force the company to unwind its acquisitions of messaging platform WhatsApp and image-sharing app Instagram.

"We regularly meet with policymakers to discuss issues impacting competitiveness, national security, and economic growth," Meta told Reuters.

Meta to Show Rival Ads Providers on Facebook Marketplace After EU Fine

The White House had no immediate comment and a spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment.

The FTC is at the forefront of an antitrust crackdown on Big Tech companies that began during Trump's first term and continued under President Joe Biden. Democrats have questioned Trump's commitment to continuing the cases after moves by Big Tech companies to smooth relations with the White House, and Trump's sudden firing of the FTC's two Democratic commissioners.

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson has said he plans to continue pursuing the agency's cases against Meta and Amazon.

Meta Floats EBay Ads Fix to Comply With EU Antitrust Order

The FTC sued Meta in 2020 during Trump's first term, alleging the company acted illegally to maintain a monopoly on personal social networks.

Meta, then known as Facebook, overpaid for Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 to eliminate nascent threats instead of competing on its own in the mobile ecosystem, the FTC claims.

Meta argues the acquisitions have been good for competition and consumers and that the FTC's case depended on an overly narrow view of social media markets and did not take in to account competition from ByteDance's TikTok, Google's YouTube, X, and Microsoft's LinkedIn.

The case is one of five blockbuster lawsuits in which antitrust regulators at the FTC and US Department of Justice are going after Big Tech.

Amazon and Apple are both being sued, and Alphabet's Google is facing two lawsuits, including one in which a judge recently found it unlawfully thwarted competition among online search engines.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.