Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the witness stand on Monday amid a landmark antitrust trial against the company.

Various emails from Zuckerberg's past communication were introduced as evidence, including one from 2022, when the Meta boss proposed a "crazy" strategy to boost Facebook's waning cultural relevance: deleting all users' friend networks.

"Option 1. Double down on Friending," Zuckerberg wrote in a 2022 message to senior Meta executives. "One potentially crazy idea is to consider wiping everyone's graphs and having them start again."

The message, suggested in response to growing concerns about Facebook's weakening relevance, suggested that the company could revitalize user engagement by eliminating existing friend connections and encouraging users to rebuild their networks from scratch.

The proposal was met with skepticism from some within the company. Tom Alison, the head of Facebook at the time, cautioned that such a move could undermine critical platform functionality, particularly on Instagram.

He responded to the Meta boss, writing, "I'm not sure Option #1 in your proposal (Double-down on Friending) would be viable given my understanding of how vital the friend use case is to IG."

Zuckerberg pressed the idea further, however, questioning whether a shift from a friend-based model to a follower-based model might be feasible.

Though the proposal was never actually implemented, as Zuckerberg noted in court on Monday, the email reveals how concerned Meta was with remaining competitive in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Meta's antitrust trial

A separate internal email, written by the Meta CEO in 2008, is at the heart of the FTC's ongoing antitrust case against the platform. In it, he wrote, "It is better to buy than compete."

The trial, which began Monday, is the result of a years-in-the-making case over Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The FTC's case alleges the company bought the rival platforms to squash competition and establish an illegal monopoly in the social media market. If Meta loses the case it could be forced to break off Instagram and WhatsApp.

Meta insists that the competitive landscape has shifted dramatically and that it now contends with a host of formidable rivals including TikTok, YouTube, iMessage, and more.