Zuckerberg Tried to Pay Off FTC With $1B to Dodge Antitrust Trial

Mark Zuckerberg’s empire is finally facing a reckoning and he tried to buy his way out of it.

According to recent revelations, the Meta CEO personally offered the Federal Trade Commission nearly $1 billion in a desperate, behind-the-scenes attempt to avoid a trial that could unravel his entire social media monopoly. It didn’t work.

Zuckerberg, who has amassed immense power over public discourse through his ownership of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is now under fire from the FTC for anticompetitive practices that have allowed him to crush competition and dominate the so-called “personal social-networking” market. The FTC's ultimate goal? Force Meta to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp, the very platforms Zuckerberg bought to consolidate his grip on online communication.

Here’s what we now know:

• Zuckerberg called FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson in March to try and broker a deal—offering first $450 million, then upping the offer to nearly $1 billion.

• Ferguson rejected the offers, countering with an $18 billion settlement and a consent decree that Zuckerberg refused to accept.

• Zuckerberg also donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration and paid $25 million in a settlement over banning Trump on Facebook after January 6 money that helped fund Trump’s presidential library.

Despite all these moves, Zuckerberg was forced into court this week, where he’s now testifying as part of the FTC’s aggressive push to unwind years of tech consolidation. At the heart of the case is Meta’s buyout strategy: purchase threats before they grow into competitors. Instagram was scooped up for $1 billion in 2012, and WhatsApp for nearly $22 billion in 2014.

Meta’s defense? It claims the FTC’s definition of the social media market is too narrow. But the company conveniently ignores that its massive acquisitions left smaller platforms like MeWe and Snapchat gasping for relevance, while real competition like TikTok ironically a Chinese-owned app has been allowed to flourish under a more lenient regulatory gaze.

While Meta whines about the FTC’s scrutiny, it has publicly complained that the Trump administration gave TikTok a pass by stalling a ban Congress already approved. Meanwhile, TikTok’s brief outage earlier this year led to a spike in Instagram traffic an embarrassing confirmation that users see them as interchangeable, undercutting Meta’s entire defense.

Let’s call this what it is: a tech tyrant trying to dodge accountability. Zuckerberg tried to buy his way out of trouble because he knows the FTC’s case threatens to rip apart his monopoly. And for once, the system said no.

Meta’s unchecked power over what Americans see, say, and share online is finally on trial and not a moment too soon.

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