On Wednesday, a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in a data privacy case linked to Facebook's Cambridge Analytica fallout. The order followed a September verdict from a Santa Fe jury that found Meta misled state residents about data collection and safeguards, as well as its efforts to curb harmful material on its services.
Jurors tallied upwards of 43 million counts under New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act, which allows up to $5,000 per violation. While a filing showed the state was awarded $219.5 billion based on those counts, the judge set the penalty at $25 billion and added 15% annual interest until it is fully paid.
New Mexico District Court Judge Francis Mathew wrote: "The extraordinary number of willful violations found by the jury, the duration and repetition of the conduct, the breadth of subjects on which violations occurred, the involvement of senior Facebook leadership, the size of New Mexico audiences reached, and the clear intentional and systematic nature of Facebook's repeated misstatements established in the trial record support the highest level of penalty allowed by the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act - $5,000 per violation found by the jury."
Judge Mathew said "Facebook did not conduct the comprehensive investigation that it promised" after the Cambridge Analytica revelations. The filing cited "pressure from senior executives to keep costs down, lack of adequate enforcement resources, inadequate investigative techniques, and a desire not to create precedent for future investigations," which the judge said produced a "willfully ineffective" internal probe.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez praised the order: "For too long, powerful technology companies have operated as though their size and influence put them beyond the reach of the law," adding that "this penalty order demonstrates that those violations carry real consequences."
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Meta's chief legal officer, C. J. Mahoney, criticized the outcome and said the company will appeal.
The case traces back to the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, where the political consultancy allegedly accessed data on 87 million users. Before Facebook rebranded as Meta, the episode triggered heavy scrutiny of the company's data practices.
In 2022, Meta entered a $725 million class action settlement related to that scandal. In August, a distinct federal case focused on child safety and mental health led Meta to reach an almost $17 billion settlement in coordination with a group of state attorneys general, resolving a variety of Cambridge Analytica-derived privacy actions. New Mexico did not join that deal, so its privacy case went to trial in September.
Former Attorney General Hector Balderas filed the New Mexico suit in 2021, and AG Torrez guided the trial to verdict. Torrez also led a separate child safety case that produced a March jury finding that Meta should pay $375 million for violating New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act. In a subsequent stage of that matter, the court required Meta to deposit $567 million into an abatement fund after finding the company's conduct amounted to a public nuisance. Meta stated it did not agree and would seek an appeal.
Big legal liabilities can reshape a company's cost structure and risk posture. Here, the order accrues 15% interest annually while appeals play out, raising the potential carry cost over time.
The company says the ruling would chill speech and will fight it. The state says long running misstatements have real costs. The bottom line: this adds legal and regulatory overhang to a stock already balancing heavy spending on AI and content safety.
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