Meta ordered to pay New Mexico $25 billion for deceiving users about
privacy on Facebook
[October 22, 2026] By
MIKELLA SCHUETTLER
A judge on Wednesday ordered Meta to pay New Mexico $25 billion after a
jury found the company liable for deceiving users about privacy on
Facebook, marking the biggest fine ever against the tech giant.
Facebook’s deception was intentional and executives consistently misled
users about how the platform worked, state District Court Judge Francis
J. Mathew wrote in his ruling.
“Facebook promised users that they (the users) controlled their data.
This was false,” he said.
Jurors in September found Meta liable for over 43 million violations of
New Mexico consumer protection laws for making misleading public
statements about how it handled users' personal data. The case was
brought after political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica harvested
Facebook data to generate targeted political ads during the 2016
election season.
The award will serve as a warning to tech companies that New Mexico will
hold them accountable, state Attorney General Raúl Torrez said at a news
conference.
“This judgment should be a signal, an unambiguous message, to Silicon
Valley,” he said.
Meta said the ruling and Torrez's office's approach to enforcement
“makes it all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico.”
“At its core, this lawsuit seeks to impose a tax on speech to enforce
new rules for what people can say online. We are confident we will
prevail on appeal,” C.J. Mahoney, the company’s chief legal officer,
said in a statement.
The Menlo Park, California, company has a market value of $1.8 trillion
and brought in more than $200 billion in revenue last year. Company
shares traded 2% higher after Wednesday's announcement, and it was
scheduled to report its quarterly earnings later in the day.
New Mexico goes it alone
In August, Meta reached a settlement with nearly all states and
territories — except New Mexico and Florida — to pay $18 billion and add
stronger child-safety measures to its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
The settlement ended a trial over teen social media addiction and
resolved a pivotal case years in the making that sought to hold the tech
giant accountable for the role its platforms played in undermining
children’s mental health. The effort targeted features designed to grab
young people’s attention.
New Mexico didn’t join the multistate settlement, choosing to go after
the company on its own.
The director of a nonprofit that supports stronger policies toward
corporations said $25 billion is “a drop in the bucket for Meta,” but
demonstrates people want accountability.
“Right now, they are rolling out Muse, an AI assistant encouraging
people to trust it with everything from their bank accounts to their
medical information,” added Nidhi Hegde, executive director of the
American Economic Liberties Project. "Which is why we need more
enforcers with courage and laws with actual teeth to rein them in.”
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 At the trial, attorneys for the
state cited a 2010 Washington Post op-ed in which Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg wrote that the company didn't sell user data.
“You have control over how your information is shared,” Zuckerberg
said. “We do not and never will sell any of your information to
anyone.”
New Mexico officials sought fines of $35 billion to $40 billion,
arguing the company would only change if its stock price were
impacted.
Meta's lawyers, meanwhile, asserted that the state failed to prove
the company made misleading statements and that content moderation
actually harmed people in New Mexico. They wanted the company to pay
$3.4 billion at most and said an award many times larger would be
unconstitutional.
Although interest would accrue on the penalty during the appeal
process, Meta could succeed in reducing the number of violations for
which it is found liable.
The $25 billion award far exceeds a $5 billion fine the Federal
Trade Commission levied against Facebook in 2019.
Peter Ormerod, an associate law professor at Villanova University,
was surprised by the size of the New Mexico judgment because
previous legal settlements over Cambridge Analytica were much lower.
“It comes out to about $12,000 per person in New Mexico,” he said.
“It’s quite unlike anything else we’ve seen.”
Under the New Mexico Constitution, fines for violating consumer
protection laws go toward education spending. It could take years
for the state to get the money while the company appeals.
Company argues that the state failed to prove harm
The trial focused on accusations Facebook deceived users about a
breach stemming from a third-party personality quiz that harvested
data from roughly 87 million profiles and sold it to Cambridge
Analytica. The now-defunct firm’s clients included Donald Trump's
2016 presidential campaign.
Attorneys for New Mexico argued that the state's entire population
was deceived, and that Facebook allowed misinformation or violent
content to proliferate.
Meta’s lawyers argued the state failed to prove people were harmed
by deceptive statements. Zuckerberg in a video deposition denied
that Facebook profited off harmful content and said the company had
to balance free speech with content moderation.
In a partial win for the company, jurors rejected assertions that
Facebook made false claims about removing harmful content, including
misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meta lawyers said it has changed policies since the lawsuit was
filed in 2021 and catches and removes an estimated 99% of content
violating its standards.
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