Zuckerberg, Sandberg in hot seat as FTC trial seeking Meta breakup kicks off

Top Meta executives including Mark Zuckerberg and ex-operating chief Sheryl Sandberg will be in the hot seat as the Federal Trade Commission’s landmark antitrust trial seeking a breakup of Meta kicked off on Monday.

The case is arguably the most high-profile legal challenge in Meta’s history and represents an existential threat to its business. The FTC has argued that Zuckerberg-led Meta used what it has called a “buy or bury” strategy to overpay for upstart firms like Instagram and WhatsApp before they could threaten its social media monopoly.

The illegal strategy “established entry barriers that for more than a decade protected Meta’s dominance,” FTC attorney Daniel Matheson claimed during the government’s opening statement at US District Court in Washington, DC. Judge James Boasberg is presiding over the case.

“Consumers do not have reasonable alternatives they can turn to,” Matheson alleged.

Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014. The feds want to break up Meta by forcing it to spin off the apps as independent businesses in a potentially crippling blow to its bottom line.

Meta does not break out its revenue figures by app, but Instagram is projected to generate more than $37.13 billion this year, or more than half of Meta’s annual US ad revenue, according to EMarketer data.

Meta attorney Mark Hansen said in his opening statement at trial that the FTC ignores that people today share a lot less with friends and family on social media, and that Instagram and Facebook users spend most of their time viewing short videos via features modeled after TikTok.

“This case is a grab bag of FTC theories at war with the facts and at war with the law,” he said.

Both Zuckerberg and Sandberg are expected to be called as witnesses during the trial and could take the stand as soon as Monday. In a March filing, FTC attorneys said Zuckerberg could be grilled for approximately seven hours — far more than any other witness.

Other high-profile names set to appear during the trial including Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, current Instagram boss Adam Mosseri and current Meta COO Javier Olivan.

In a sign of potential panic, Zuckerberg has been aggressively lobbying President Trump to settle the FTC’s case as part of a broader effort to cozy up to his administration.

The billionaire has reportedly personally visited the White House at least three times since Trump’s term began in January. Zuckerberg also cut a $1 million check toward Trump’s inauguration, ended Meta’s DEI efforts and eliminated fact-checking to woo the president.

Despite those efforts, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson affirmed ahead of the trial that his team was fully prepared to pursue the case to its conclusion.

FTC spokesperson Joe Simonson said “the Trump-Vance FTC could not be more ready for this trial.”

The case was first brought in 2020 during Trump’s first term in office.

Zuckerberg is expected to face tough questions focused on emails he sent around the time of the acquisitions. In one instance from April 2012, Zuckerberg sent emails discussing whether to buy Instagram.

“Instagram can hurt us meaningfully without becoming a huge business,” Zuckerberg wrote at the time.

Meta has pushed back on the FTC’s allegations, asserting in a statement that the agency’s lawsuit “defies reality.”

“More than 10 years after the FTC reviewed and cleared our acquisitions, the Commission’s action in this case sends the message that no deal is ever truly final,” Meta said in a statement.

“Regulators should be supporting American innovation, rather than seeking to break up a great American company and further advantaging China on critical issues like AI,” the company added.

Meanwhile, the FTC will have to clear a high bar to achieve a breakup. Boasberg warned in a November ruling that the agency “faces hard questions about whether its claims can hold up in the crucible of trial.”

The FTC is just one of several legal and regulatory headaches facing Meta.

The European Union is days away from slapping Meta with a significant fine for violations of its Digital Markets Act — with sources telling The Post that it could surpass $1 billion.

Separately, former Facebook executive-turned-whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams delivered damning testimony on Capitol Hill last week accusing Zuckerberg and other executives of selling out US national security to China in a failed bid to gain access to its market.

With Post wires