Mark Zuckerberg’s private emails about Facebook’s purchase of Instagram more than a decade ago came back to haunt Meta at its historic antitrust trial this week – and the outcome of the case could ultimately hinge on whether a judge buys his attempts to explain them away,

Mark Zuckerberg floated the possibility of spinning off Instagram from his social media empire amid rising regulatory scrutiny of the technology sector and an increasing concern that the photo sharing app was “cannibalizing” the success of Facebook.