Mark Zuckerberg bought Instagram as it was a ‘threat’ to Facebook

The US House antitrust subcommittee has made public the email exchanges between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former chief financial officer David Ebersman, revealing that the company (and Zuckerberg, in particular) wanted to buy Instagram to avoid competition as it could have hurt the social network.

Rep Jerry Nadler (D-NY) on Wednesday grilled Zuckerberg about the Instagram acquisition during the testimonies from the Big Tech CEOs, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai of Google and Tim Cook of Apple.

The emails revealed that Zuckerberg wanted to buy Instagram as it was becoming a threat to Facebook.

“Facebook, by its own admission saw Instagram as a threat that could potentially siphon business away from Facebook,” Nadler said during the hearing on Wednesday.