Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has revealed during the ongoing Meta vs. FTC Antitust Trial that he once weighed the idea of ​​separating Instagram from Meta’s portfolio, according to a report by Reuters, according to a document presented during the second day of testimony. The 2018 dated memorandum shows that Zuckerberg considered the move on growing concerns that American regulators may eventually force the company to divide.

“I wonder if we should consider the extreme step of spinning Instagram as a separate company,” Zuckerberg wrote at the time, while Meta – was then known as Facebook – evaluating ways to integrate our family’s own family more tightly. While he saw a possible commercial growth through consolidation, he also warned that doing so could reduce the value of Facebook and would not guarantee that Meta can maintain all its apps in a long time. Finally, Meta chose against the spinning of Instagram and proceeded with his plan to unite its platforms. However, the document has been revived as a central piece of evidence in the current test, where the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is demanding to break the meta and reverse its acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp.

Zuckerberg’s memorandum allegedly accepted increasing political pressure on Big Tech, especially in a state of change in American leadership. He said, “As calls to break up large technical companies, there is a non-unconventional opportunity that we will be forced to spin Instagram and perhaps WhatsApp over the next 5–10 years,” he warned, “he warned,” the next Democratic President “.

The court battle comes years after FTC has officially filed his case under the administration of President Trump in 2020. Since then, Meta has publicly argued that the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp helped improve those platforms, and breaking them would cause innovation and harm to users. Nevertheless, back in 2018, Zuckerberg appeared more open to the possibility of a breakup, stating, “Most companies actually perform better after dividing them after performing better.”

Zuckerberg’s recent testimony also included a clear entry that Meta acquired Instagram as it had a better camera feature that Facebook was trying to develop internally at that time. “We were doing a build vs. purchase analysis,” he told the court. “I thought Instagram was better on him, so I thought it was better to buy them.” It closely aligns with FTC allegations that Meta followed the “buy or buried” approach to suppress the growing competition.

During the test, FTC lawyers also highlighted Zuckerberg’s previous comment that “is better than competition” – a statement that has become a symbol of government’s widespread mistrust logic.

Earlier this week, it was also discovered that Zuckerberg tried to negotiate an agreement to avoid testing. In March, he allegedly offered FTC to $ 450 million, eventually the figure to $ 1 billion. However, it fell from FTC’s alleged demand of $ 30 billion, or at least $ 18 billion and a formal consent decree. The chairman of the commission, Andrew Ferguson, dismissed the proposal, and this week the case proceeded for testing this week.

Zuckerberg was called for a stand on Monday. He is expected to return to the end of this week, in which former COO Sheryl Sandberg and Instagram co-founder Kevin Sistrom are also set to appear with more high-profile witnesses.