TLDR
- New Mexico asked a judge to order Meta to pay between $35 billion and $40 billion in penalties.
- The case stems from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where Facebook data from up to 87 million users was harvested without consent.
- A jury found 26 of 29 Meta statements misleading, totaling more than 43 million violations of state consumer law.
- Meta wants the penalty capped at $3.45 billion, calling New Mexico’s request unconstitutional.
- Judge Francis Mathew expects to rule later this month.
Meta Platforms (META) stock ticked up 0.10% on Thursday as a New Mexico courtroom battle over user privacy reached its next stage. The state asked a judge to hit the company with penalties between $35 billion and $40 billion.
The request came during a hearing in Santa Fe. It follows a jury verdict reached on September 25.
That verdict found Meta had misled Facebook users about how their data was handled. It also covered how the company managed hate speech and misinformation on the platform.
The case traces back to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. That British firm worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and pulled personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app, without their consent.
What the Jury Found
Jurors reviewed 29 statements made by Meta and its leadership. They decided 26 of them were misleading.
That added up to more than 43 million violations of New Mexico’s consumer protection laws. The number is based on how many Facebook users or state residents saw each misleading statement.
Meta’s lawyers argued at trial that the statements were cherry-picked. They said the company had already admitted its handling of privacy and misinformation issues wasn’t perfect.
State law lets the judge fine Meta up to $5,000 per violation. New Mexico’s attorney, Randi McGinn, said applying that full amount would raise constitutional due process concerns.
Arguments From Both Sides
Instead, McGinn asked for $35 billion to $40 billion. She said that figure is about 20% of the maximum possible penalty and would still affect Meta’s stock price without crossing legal limits.
“This court should speak to Meta in the only language it understands, which is money, and the value of its stock price,” McGinn told the judge.
Meta’s attorney, Matt Nicholson, pushed back hard. He called the state’s request an “astronomical penalty” that would violate multiple constitutional provisions.
In court filings, Meta urged the judge to cap any penalty at $3.45 billion. The company maintains it never sold user data and argues New Mexico failed to prove any consumer was actually misled.
Judge Mathew didn’t hold back during the hearing either. When Meta pushed back on the size of the request, he reminded both sides that trial outcomes come with consequences.
“They have to accept the consequences of their decision to go to trial, do they not?” he said.
The lawsuit itself was filed back in 2021. It accused Meta of lying about who had access to user data and how seriously it took harmful content on the platform.
New Mexico argued the company tolerated hate speech and misinformation when doing so helped its bottom line. That claim became a central thread running through the trial.
Judge Mathew said he expects to issue his ruling on the penalty amount later this month. Until then, the exact financial hit to Meta remains unknown.
The case is listed as State of New Mexico, et al., v. Meta Platforms, Inc., case number D-101-CV-2021-00132, in the First Judicial District Court of New Mexico.
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