Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, was ordered on Wednesday to pay $25 billion (£18.6 billion) by a New Mexico judge following a two‑week trial that uncovered years of deception about how the firm managed Facebook user data.
The judge said the lies “extend beyond Facebook’s data practices as well,” adding they reached the core of the company’s business model. Meta’s chief lawyer, CJ Mahoney, warned that the ruling makes it “all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico” and said the company would appeal, confident of success.
The fine is the biggest ever imposed on Meta, which has already settled or been fined for other lawsuits this year, including an $18 billion deal with California over child safety. New Mexico’s case stemmed from the firm’s role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where data from millions of users was used in political consulting for the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
State attorneys also accused Meta of misleading the public about how it benefited from content that included hate speech and how it enforced rules against such content. A jury found that Meta had intentionally misled the public on those matters as well. Meta denied the accusations, arguing that the lawsuit sought to impose a tax on speech.
Lawyers for New Mexico sued over statements that user data was never shared with third parties without permission, when in fact it had been. They claimed that roughly two million residents were impacted by Meta’s dishonesty, and a jury found the company had violated state laws more than 40 million times.
Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the result proves that no corporation is too powerful to be held accountable. The state sought up to $40 billion in fines, but the judge capped the penalty at $25 billion, roughly equal to Meta’s quarterly profits.
Judge Francis Mathew noted that Meta’s violations spanned more than 11 years, from 2010 to 2021, and that communications between senior executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, were “designed to mislead the public.” The full penalty, calculated at $219 billion, was reduced to the $25 billion fine.
Meta has already faced a $5 billion fine from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in 2019 over data privacy practices, and the state this year also fined the company almost $1 billion for misleading the public about the safety of its platforms for children.
Despite the hefty fines, Meta is pouring money into artificial intelligence. Zuckerberg said that the company’s consumer‑focused AI tool, Muse, is already used by 10 million people and that it plans to spend at least $135 billion this year on AI projects, potentially up to $145 billion. The company reported negative cash flow of more than $2 billion, a first since it went public 14 years ago, while revenue for July‑September rose 26 % to $64.5 billion and profits tripled to $9.8 billion.
Meta’s chief financial officer, Susan Li, announced a new stock split, giving existing shareholders one new share of non‑voting stock, citing the need for more funding flexibility for AI investments.
Meta will appeal the fine, and the outcome could set a precedent for how tech companies are regulated in the United States.
