Zuckerberg tells court he made WhatsApp and Instagram better
Towards the end of Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony in a Washington, DC courthouse, a smile flashed across his face.
Meta’s lead attorney, Mark Hansen, had asked the CEO if he was “happy†about paying $19 billion for WhatsApp in 2014.
Zuckerberg flashed a grin, took a brief pause, and responded, “I’d do it again.â€
Over the last decade, the growing scale of Instagram and WhatsApp cemented Meta as one of the most powerful companies on earth. Now, the US government, via a Federal Trade Commission antitrust lawsuit, is trying to unwind those acquisitions through a trial that began on April 14th. Zuckerberg spent roughly 13 hours across three days answering questions from the FTC and Meta lawyers. Much of that time on Wednesday was devoted to attempting to refute one core argument: that he bought both apps to take them out and not to make them better.
The FTC contends that WhatsApp was acquired because Zuckerberg and his executives were worried at the time that private messaging apps would grow into fully-fledged social media businesses. From the witness stand, Zuckerberg acknowledged that it was “something I thought about,†but that he thought it would be “extremel …