Testimony that Instagram was ‘better’ seems to bolster allegations Meta used ‘buy or bury’ tactic to snap up rivals

Meta’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg considered spinning off Instagram in 2018 in anticipation of a potential antitrust suit, documents unveiled at a trial in Washington showed on Tuesday.

​​“While most companies resist break-ups, the corporate history is that most companies actually perform better after they’ve been split up,” he wrote in an email at the time. He said there was a “there is a non-trivial chance” his company would be forced to spin Instagram and WhatsApp out anyway.

Zuckerberg made another key concession during the US trial on Tuesday, saying he bought Instagram because it had a “better” camera than the one Facebook was trying to build for its flagship app at the time. In the email, he said Instagram was a “rapidly growing, threatening, network”.