Instagram head Adam Mosseri is scheduled to provide potentially pivotal testimony this week as Meta defends itself against the Federal Trade Commission in a closely watched antitrust trial.
The FTC is accusing Meta of unfairly boxing out competition in a case that may force the California-based company to divest from Instagram and WhatsApp.
Mr Mosseri is scheduled to take the witness box on May 8. The date was set after brief controversy the day before as FTC and Meta lawyers sparred over the timeline for witnesses to be called.
FTC lawyer Daniel Matheson accused Meta of making last-minute adjustments.
The FTC told Judge James Boasberg there was an agreement to allow some “spillover time” for the questioning and cross examination of Mr Mosseri stretching into early next week, but that Meta suddenly adjusted his schedule.
“They now claim for the first time last night that there’s a blackout date on Monday,” said Mr Matheson, referring to Meta's adjusting witness list schedules based on the availability of Mr Mosseri.
“We work very hard to accommodate to them for all their schedules.”
The dates of the Instagram boss's court appearance may seem trivial, but Mr Mosseri and Instagram represent a significant portion of the FTC's case against Meta.
Besides Meta's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, Mr Mosseri, who is in charge of both Instagram and Threads, has become one of the most prominent figures in the Meta universe.
He frequently hosts question-and-answer sessions on Instagram, offering tips and tricks of how to get the most from the photo and video sharing platform.
Meta bought Instagram in 2012 for approximately $1 billion. That purchase, along with a later acquisition of WhatsApp are the biggest elements to the FTC's accusations that Meta unfairly chose to snuff out rival companies, rather than compete with them in the marketplace.
The FTC is trying to convince Judge Boasberg that Meta's alleged anticompetitive practices hurt customers and the marketplace of ideas.
The trial, now in its fourth week, is expected to take at least two months before the judge deliberates on whether the FTC's antitrust arguments are enough to warrant a remedy.
In a worst-case scenario for Meta, the company could be required to divest from Instagram and WhatsApp, significantly hurting the social media company's revenue and influence among consumers and the tech world.
Mr Zuckerberg, along with the company's former chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, have been among the star witnesses so far.
Meta lawyers hit back against the accusation they were trying to manipulate witness schedules, telling Judge Boasberg that new evidence belatedly provided by social media company Snap caused the need to adjust timings.
As for Mr Mosseri, according to his recent Instagram posts shared with his more than three million followers, he was in New York on Monday for the Met Gala, and just prior was in India for a Meta-related event promoting Instagram features.
