In a newly revealed internal email detailed in the ongoing antitrust trial against Meta, CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed deep concern that Instagram’s growing success could threaten Facebook by cannibalizing its user base. Writing to senior leadership in May 2018, Zuckerberg warned about the possibility of Facebook suffering a “network collapse” if Instagram continued to absorb engagement and active users from the main platform.
At the time, Zuckerberg suggested several strategies to address this problem. Among these were greater integration between Meta’s suite of apps—Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger—to strengthen their collective network value and mitigate harm from user migration. Still, Zuckerberg considered an alternative approach: spinning out Instagram entirely as its own independent business. This drastic measure, he reasoned, might ultimately safeguard Facebook’s larger, more profitable network, allowing it to maintain engagement and brand dominance without continued internal competition from Instagram.
The antitrust lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission hinges, in part, on these sorts of internal communications, which the government argues show that Meta deliberately suppressed competition through strategic acquisitions. According to the FTC, buying competing platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp allowed Meta to maintain dominance in social media, despite recognizing internally the threat these acquisitions posed to Facebook itself.
Zuckerberg’s candid admission came in correspondence shared with senior executives including Chris Cox, then-COO Sheryl Sandberg, former CTO Mike Schroepfer, Javier Olivan (now COO), and former CFO David Wehner. He underscored that internal analytics clearly demonstrated Instagram’s impact—once joining Instagram, users significantly reduced their Facebook activity, creating what he termed a “hollowing out” of Facebook’s engagement metrics. Zuckerberg expressed concern that Meta’s long-term expectations for concurrent growth might be misguided if Instagram continued to negatively impact Facebook at scale.
Describing how much of Instagram’s early growth depended heavily on distribution and connections provided via Facebook’s own network, Zuckerberg concluded there was “a real chance” that Meta was inadvertently destabilizing its most profitable and engaging product. He therefore ordered a reduction in Facebook-to-Instagram cross-promotions and encouraged initiatives aimed at rebalancing user traffic back toward Facebook. Additionally, he emphasized introducing new integrations to unify messaging and content-sharing more seamlessly across all Meta apps, an idea partly realized when Meta temporarily implemented cross-platform messaging between Messenger and Instagram before rolling it back later.
Interestingly, Zuckerberg also reflected on management issues within acquired companies, citing the challenges posed by the strong leadership styles of Instagram’s co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. He acknowledged difficulties in openly confronting Instagram’s competitive threats for fear of demoralizing the team and potentially losing key personnel, who indeed left later that same year. Zuckerberg even proposed explicitly branding Instagram and WhatsApp as Facebook-owned, displaying “Facebook” branding prominently within these apps to solidify their corporate identities. Meta eventually adopted a different strategy, renaming itself from Facebook Inc. to Meta in 2021.
Ultimately, the firm chose against spinning out Instagram as a standalone entity, yet Zuckerberg presciently noted in 2018 the risk of regulatory intervention could lead to forced divestitures within five to ten years, nullifying extensive integration efforts across Meta’s apps. If the FTC prevails, precisely that scenario could materialize, ironically aligning with Zuckerberg’s earlier notion of Instagram’s separation as possibly the “only structure” to preserve Facebook’s valued network.
Meta, responding to the surfaced emails, described the FTC’s evidence as “out-of-context” and dated, asserting that the documents will not obscure present-day realities of marketplace competition or bolster the government’s lawsuit.
