I think the possibility of Trump forcing a settlement is now low. During Mark Zuckerberg’s visit to the White House, Mike Davis, a member of the Oval Office group and who has been a strong critic of Mark Zuckerberg, was present. Davis later wrote in X: “Mission accomplished," suggesting that he was successful in preventing a settlement. I also don’t see further areas where Trump can extract concessions from Meta Platforms. Zuckerberg has gotten rid of third-party fact-checkers, DEI initiatives and is working towards reducing political censorship. In my opinion, Trump might allow the trial to take its course and then get involved during the remedies stage, so as to appease everyone involved.
I agree with your assessment that the FTC’s case appears weak. The FTC argues that Meta acquired Instagram and WhatsApp so as to stifle competition. Yesterday, the FTC’s lawyer presented emails in which Zuckerberg said Instagram and WhatsApp was growing much faster than Facebook that they had to buy them. The FTC lawyer calls this evidence a “smoking gun”. However, legal experts argue that intent isn’t illegal, that what matters is the market’s health now. Similarly, in his November ruling, Boasberg pointed out that his decision might ultimately hinge on how to define Meta’s market and whether the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp has meaningfully benefitted consumers, even if they were motivated by the desire to stifle would-be rivals.
The FTC defines Meta’s market as “personal social networking” and excludes TikTok and YouTube but includes Snapchat and MeWe. If Meta convinces the judge that the FTC’s definition isn’t right, the case falls a part. In their defence yesterday, Meta indicated that when TikTok was briefly offline in January, Facebook’s usage rose 20% while Instagram’s usage increased 17%. Meta’s lawyer also said that 50% of all engagement in Facebook and Instagram involves videos, which put them squarely in competition with TikTok. The sentiment that FTC’s definition of Meta’s market is weak has been supported by a number of experts (William Kovacic-former FTC chairman (min 11:17), Moselle Thompson- former FTC commissioner (min 2:28),George Alan Hay-former chief economist for the DOJ Antitrust Division (min 0:00)).
The FTC says the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp has led to the degradation in their quality- for example, worse privacy protections or more ads than would exist under competition. However, legal experts believe that proving this is also inherently harder than showing a monopoly raised prices. The FTC will also have to prove how Instagram and WhatsApp might have turnout if they had not been acquired by Meta, which is also hard.
Overall, we are in early trial phase and what was presented yesterday doesn’t change the general opinion that the FTC’s case against Meta is weak.