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Meta has won the antitrust case brought by the US Federal Trade Commission that threatened to break apart the company after a judge ruled the social media giant does not hold an illegal monopoly.
Judge James Boasberg said the regulator had failed to sufficiently prove that Meta had maintained monopoly power by adopting a “buy-or-bury” strategy, in an order on Tuesday.
The ruling marks a major blow to the FTC’s efforts to rein in Big Tech. The agency had sought to force the $1.5tn tech company to unwind its acquisitions of messaging platform WhatsApp and photo-sharing app Instagram.
The federal court in Washington agreed with Meta’s argument that the company competed with services such as Google’s YouTube and TikTok, which the FTC had not included in its definition of “personal social networking”.
“Whether or not Meta enjoyed monopoly power in the past, though, the agency must show that it continues to hold such power now. The court’s verdict today determines that the FTC has not done so,” the judge wrote.
The lawsuit, one of the most high-profile competition cases in recent years, began during Donald Trump’s first administration in 2020 when the FTC sued the company then known as Facebook over allegedly maintaining an illegal monopoly.
The case stemmed from Meta’s acquisition of rivals Instagram and WhatsApp, in 2012 and 2014 for $1bn and $19bn respectively, which the FTC argued was part of a deliberate strategy to quash would-be competitors.
The ruling is the latest reprieve in a case seeking to break up a Big Tech group. A federal judge in September decided not to order Google to sell its Chrome browser, after the search giant lost a separate federal antitrust case that found it maintained a monopoly in digital advertising.
US antitrust enforcers from both political parties have kept up pressure on Silicon Valley groups over their domination of sectors such as social media, ecommerce and online search.
The FTC under former president Joe Biden scored a victory in 2022 when Boasberg ruled the Meta lawsuit could proceed after the commission refiled its case. But some experts argued unwinding the WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions would be a tall order, especially years after the fact.
Meta unsuccessfully lobbied Trump’s administration ahead of the trial to settle the case. According to a person familiar with the matter, the FTC had demanded a $30bn settlement. Meta initially offered $450mn then raised its proposal to $1bn after the regulator set a floor of $18bn.
Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg has for the past year sought to court Trump and his administration, loosening Meta’s content moderation following Republican concerns over censorship and free speech, while publicly praising the president and meeting him regularly.
At the trial in April, Meta’s defence centred on TikTok’s meteoric rise as a competing social media platform. Boasberg ultimately welcomed this argument, noting in his opinion that the video app had “spread furiously” since its arrival in the US in 2018 and today “holds centre stage as Meta’s fiercest rival”.
He nodded to another argument from Meta, writing that a “tectonic transformation” in the social media sector meant the group’s apps had transformed in recent years and “Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube have . . . evolved to have nearly identical main features”.
The FTC said it was “deeply disappointed in this decision” and was “reviewing all our options”.
The agency also criticised Boasberg, saying the “deck was always stacked against us” and that the judge is facing impeachment efforts — launched by Republican lawmakers after Boasberg ruled against Trump and his allies on several occasions including over high-profile deportations.
Boasberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the impeachment efforts.
Meta said: “The court’s decision today recognises that Meta faces fierce competition . . . We look forward to continuing to partner with the administration and to invest in America.”
