In a deep dive into Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's face-off with the Federal Trade Commission anti-trust investigation over his acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the controversial founder of Facebook placed a bet that Donald Trump would intervene -- and it never happened.
According to the Journal's Dana Mattioli, Rebecca Ballhaus and Josh Dawsey, the FTC is in the process of getting Zuckerberg to admit he bought the two apps in an effort to "neutralize" them as a threat to his core business and is seeking up to $30 billion in penalties.
Instead, Zuckerberg offered up $450 million which former FTC Chair Lina Khan derided as "delusional" in an interview with the Journal, adding, "Mark bought his way out of competing, so I’m not surprised that he thinks he can buy his way out of law enforcement, too. His proposed remedy, like his market strategy, is: ‘let my illegal monopoly keep monopolizing.’”
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The report notes that it appears Zuckerberg thought his paltry offer would get him off the hook with Trump also weighing in on his behalf.
According to the report, Zuckerberg contacted FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson in March with his lowball offer with the Journal adding, "On the call, Zuckerberg sounded confident that President Trump would back him up with the FTC, said people familiar with the matter. The billionaire Facebook co-founder had been developing closer ties to Trump—his company donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration and settled a $25 million lawsuit—and had been pressing the president in recent weeks to intervene in the monopoly lawsuit."
That did not occur, with Ferguson reportedly telling the tech billionaire his offer was "not credible, and wasn’t ready to settle for anything less than $18 billion and a consent decree."
According to the report, Zuckerberg and top executives at Meta have been meeting with both Trump and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in an effort to get help and that the president was "open to striking a deal with Meta and Zuckerberg, directing staff to work on a deal," but then it fell apart when members of his inner circle group made their case "for Trump not to intervene on Meta’s behalf and to let the case go to trial."
According to the Journal, "For Zuckerberg, who has spent tens of millions in recent years aiming to rebuild his relationship with Trump, the failure to reach a deal pretrial suggests he isn’t getting much return on his investment," adding, "Some people around Trump have warned the president that Zuckerberg’s MAGA rebrand is disingenuous."
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