A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion on Wednesday, the largest financial penalty the company has ever faced.
By the numbers: Judge Francis Mathew found that a penalty above $219 billion was warranted under state law, then reduced it to $25 billion. Meta had urged him to cap the figure at $3.45 billion.
- "Facebook's wrongdoing, over the course of years and systematically broadcast to the public, goes to the heart of Facebook's core business practices," Mathew wrote in his order.
The backstory: New Mexico sued in 2021 after revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm, had harvested personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app.
- Jurors on 25 September found that 26 of 29 statements by the company and its leadership were misleading, amounting to more than 43 million violations of state consumer protection law. The statute allows up to $5,000 per violation.
The other side: Meta argued in court filings that it does not sell user data and that the state failed to prove any consumer was actually misled, warning that a large penalty risked scaring businesses out of New Mexico.
- Randi McGinn, a lawyer for the state, had asked for $35 billion to $40 billion at an October 1 hearing. "This court should speak to Meta in the only language it understands, which is money, and the value of its stock price," she said.
Zoom in: Attorney General Raul Torrez told reporters that all of the money goes to New Mexico's school system. This is the state's second trial win against Meta in six months: a March verdict produced $375 million in civil penalties plus $567 million for a teen mental health fund.
Why it matters: Meta reported third-quarter results the same afternoon, with revenue up 26% to $64.6 billion and net income below Wall Street estimates because of a $9.9 billion US settlement payment. Legal costs are now large enough to move the earnings line.
