Zuckerberg Eyed Instagram Spinoff From Meta

The document was shown during Zuckerbergs second day of testimony at the high-stakes trial, in which the US Federal Trade Commission is seeking to unwind Metas acquisitions of prized assets Instagram and WhatsApp.

I wonder if we should consider the extreme step of spinning Instagram out as a separate company, Zuckerberg said in the memo. At the time, the company was mulling plans to reorganise the social media company and link its apps together more closely.

Zuckerberg pushed back in the memo, saying consolidation was likely to yield strong business growth but cautioning that it also could erode the value of flagship app Facebooks social network, with scant promise that the company would get to keep its full family of apps in the end.

Meta ultimately did not spin off Instagram, instead proceeding with the plan to integrate its apps the following year. But the fact that Zuckerberg even considered the idea is a stunning sign of how seriously he took the threat of precisely the type of antitrust trial proceeding now.

The FTC ultimately sued Meta in 2020, during President Donald Trumps first term. Trumps antitrust enforcers sued Google the same year, accusing it of monopolising search.