The feds want to break up Facebook. Good luck with that.

Facebook critics have cheered as the Biden administration trained its sights on the company for practices that federal regulators say invade people's privacy, unfairly squash rivals and more generally maintain its stranglehold on the social media world. The recently expanded lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission openly characterizes co-founder Mark Zuckerberg as an old-school monopolist, raising the hopes of detractors and rivals alike that the government may even push to smash his brainchild into pieces.

Don't bet on it. Antitrust experts and Wall Street analysts say the U.S. faces long odds in its battle with Facebook, predicting that a breakup of the world's largest social media company is highly unlikely. Investors seem to agree. Facebook shares have gained 4% since the government sharpened its case last week. "[T]here is very little chance that FB is required to be broken up, as we expect the FTC to lose the case," Chase White, an analyst with Height Securities, wrote in a recent report.