Mark Zuckerberg's empire at stake as Meta prepares to battle Trump's antitrust cops in court

[Dulcinea]

(Yahoo Finance) Meta Platforms (META) is preparing for the start of a courtroom antitrust battle Monday with the US government in a case that could force Mark Zuckerberg to break up his $1.3 trillion empire and sell one of its crown jewels: Instagram.

If Zuckerberg is not able to convince President Trump to settle before the trial begins in a Washington, D.C., court before US judge James Boasberg, Meta will become the second Silicon Valley giant in two years to face off against the government’s antitrust watchdogs.

The first was Alphabet's Google (GOOG, GOOGL), which battled the Justice Department in court during parts of 2023 and 2024. Federal judge Amit Mehta ruled last August that Google illegally monopolized online markets for "general search" and "general search text.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mark-zuckerbergs-empire-at-stake-as-meta-prepares-to-battle-trumps-antitrust-cops-in-court-140019335.html?.tsrc=daily_mail&segment_id=DY_VTO_CORE&ncid=crm_19908-1475736-20250413-0-&bt_user_id=2wafBzrjQe0vokapa0vpy2sjRgkbxHh%2FAr1%2BLgAicQmjEDib1jasawzA60Lmr2zp&bt_ts=1744545483429

[Efilroft Sul]

1. Kick to the top. Been thinking about this article since I saw it earlier in the day.

Trump is transactional; everybody now knows this. So I'm thinking the proposed settlement to the case, as offered by the Trump regime, involves Meta keeping its social media platforms in exchange for surrendering all user data to the Justice Department.

The Faustian bargain for Zuckerberg is that Musk and DOGE will likely get access to all that sweet, sweet PII. Worse, users on all platforms are going to be screwed once DOGE and DOJ start identifying future tourists to El Salvador.

I'm hoping Judge Boasberg sees something like this coming from a mile away and can do something about it.