Facebook joins $1 trillion market cap club following dismissal of FTC suit

AppleInsider

Facebook stock surpassed the mythical $1 trillion high-water mark for the first time on Monday after a pair of antitrust lawsuits were dismissed in federal court.

Shares of the social network finished up 4% at $355.64 at the close of trading, giving the company a market cap of just over $1 trillion.

Hours before trading was halted, a federal court granted Facebook's request to dismiss a U.S. Federal Trade Commission antitrust lawsuit. According to the judge, the FTC's complaint, which alleged Facebook maintains monopoly power over the social networking sector through illegal means, was "legally insufficient."

"FTC has failed to plead enough facts to plausibly establish a necessary element of all of its Section 2 claims -- namely, that Facebook has monopoly power in the market for Personal Social Networking (PSN) Services," the judgment reads.

The case dates back to 2020, when the FTC and attorneys general from 48 states and territories lodged twin antitrust filings against the social networking giant. Among the suits' chief complaints was allegedly anticompetitive conduct related to acquisitions of competing services, specifically WhatsApp and Instagram.

The states' case was also dismissed on Monday in district court.

Facebook is among an elite group of tech companies to surpass the $1 trillion mark, following in the footsteps of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, reports CNET.

Apple went on to become the first U.S. company to obtain a $2 trillion market cap in August 2020, and Microsoft recently reached that same milestone last week.

lkrupp

The $1 Trillion market cap is ‘mythical’? Apple and Microsoft are at $2 Trillion. Nothing mythical about it.  

kimberly

It all began with a small sleazy college app that rated women's faces. A lot bigger now including the sleaze. Yuk.

rob53

Amazing that a company that doesn’t actually make something has such a high market cap. I wonder if congressional pressure will invalidate this court ruling. 

amar99

I sometimes wonder if Mark Suckerburg is just really dumb, instead of the calculating villain I believe him to be. Because his answers are always such a combination of meaningless and clueless. "But senator, we collect the data because we have to."

rotateleftbyte

amar99 said:

I sometimes wonder if Mark Suckerburg is just really dumb, instead of the calculating villain I believe him to be. Because his answers are always such a combination of meaningless and clueless. "But senator, we collect the data because we have to."

He is a villain. All that is missing is the monocle and the white cat.

thedba

I disactivated my account recently, something I should’ve done a long time ago. 

Sick and tired of all the BS suggestions about new friends and postings about celebrating someone’s dog’s birthdays. 

Only kept messenger, since many family members communicate through it. 

Oh and thanks to Apple for putting in tighter controls on app tracking. 

foregoneconclusion

rob53 said:

Amazing that a company that doesn’t actually make something has such a high market cap. I wonder if congressional pressure will invalidate this court ruling. 

The judge is giving the government a period of time to submit new evidence and start over in the Facebook lawsuit. Whether they do or not remains to be seen. Congress can't "pressure" the court. They could pass some of the tech related antitrust bills, but it remains to be seen which of those will actually pass and whether or not they would be signed into law. 

edited June 2021

22july2013

We need an Orson Welles today to make a movie like Citizen Kane about Mark Zuckerberg. 

crowley

22july2013 said:

We need an Orson Welles today to make a movie like Citizen Kane about Mark Zuckerberg. 

Jfc are you ignorant about everything?

mike1

rob53 said:

Amazing that a company that doesn’t actually make something has such a high market cap. I wonder if congressional pressure will invalidate this court ruling. 

Doesn't really work like that.

22july2013

crowley said:

22july2013 said:

We need an Orson Welles today to make a movie like Citizen Kane about Mark Zuckerberg. 

Jfc are you ignorant about everything?

The difference is that Zuckerberg didn't mind that movie, and the movie helped promote his brand and his wealth, while Randolph Hearst was ENRAGED by Citizen Kane and tried to ban it every way he could. Perhaps I should have explained myself better because you have a long, long history of (intentionally?) missing my points. I apologize for assuming that you knew history. 

crowley

22july2013 said:

crowley said:

22july2013 said:

We need an Orson Welles today to make a movie like Citizen Kane about Mark Zuckerberg. 

Jfc are you ignorant about everything?

The difference is that Zuckerberg didn't mind that movie, and the movie helped promote his brand and his wealth, while Randolph Hearst was ENRAGED by Citizen Kane and tried to ban it every way he could. Perhaps I should have explained myself better because you have a long, long history of (intentionally?) missing my points. I apologize for assuming that you knew history. 

1. He's said on more than one occasion that he doesn't like it.
2. He was already very wealthy, and the movie made him look like a sociopath, not a regular form of "promotion"
3. Randolph Hearst had the power to move against Citizen Kane, Zuckerbeg has limited ability to do such a thing.
4. You have no point.  You never do.  You just pontificate and ask questions mindlessly.

phonephreak

Congrats to Facebook.  I don’t use it or any other social media app.  But it’s an impressive feat to accomplish