(Reuters) -Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg is lobbying U.S. President Donald Trump and White House officials to agree to a settlement that would prevent the company from facing an antitrust trial later this month, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Meta and its representatives have met with the president and his senior advisers ahead of an April 14 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) trial that could force the company to unwind its acquisitions of messaging platform WhatsApp and image-sharing app Instagram, the report said.
“We regularly meet with policymakers to discuss issues impacting competitiveness, national security, and economic growth,” Meta told Reuters.
The White House and a spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment.
The FTC sued Meta in 2020 during Trump’s first term, alleging the company acted illegally to maintain a monopoly on personal social networks.
Meta, then known as Facebook, overpaid for Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 to eliminate nascent threats instead of competing on its own in the mobile ecosystem, the FTC claims.
(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru and Jody Godoy in Washington; Editing by Maju Samuel)
