Meta Hit With $25 Billion Penalty as Judge Cuts Record Jury Award

A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion for misleading users about the privacy of their data, concluding a case that began with the Cambridge Analytica scandal and now stands as the largest consumer-protection penalty in American history.

First Judicial District Judge Francis Mathew issued the ruling on October 21, 2026, reducing a jury award that had reached $219 billion, a figure that would have ranked as the largest civil fine ever imposed in the United States. The judge offered no explanation of how he arrived at the lower number.

How the figure was built

The penalty rests on New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act, which caps civil penalties at $5,000 per violation. On September 25, a jury found that 26 of Meta’s 29 challenged statements about user privacy were misleading. Jurors then counted violations by audience: 2.1 million for statements carried in major news media and 1.4 million for statements made through the company’s own official channels. Attorney General Raúl Torrez put the total at nearly 44 million violations.

At an October 1 penalty hearing, state lawyers sought $35 to $40 billion. Meta argued the figure should be capped at $3.45 billion, having earlier requested an 80 percent discount.

The underlying conduct

Torrez filed the suit in 2021, after revelations that Cambridge Analytica had harvested personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party personality quiz. That data was sold to a political consulting firm working for Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

New Mexico argued Meta knew third parties had broad access to user data and allowed harmful content to remain while it served the business. Central to the state’s case: Facebook publicly pledged to investigate advertiser misuse of data, but conducted only 14 audits and never notified affected users.

Meta’s response

Meta said it was disappointed and plans to appeal. Chief Legal Officer C.J. Mahoney said the verdict and the attorney general’s approach make operating in New Mexico “all but impossible”, and characterized the suit as an attempt to tax speech.

The company maintains that evidence showed it never sold user data, and that New Mexico failed to prove any consumer was actually deceived. Meta also argued the penalty violates constitutional protections against excessive fines.

Context

The previous record for a Cambridge Analytica-related penalty was the Federal Trade Commission’s $5 billion settlement in 2019, now one-fifth the size of this award. In August 2026, six other states settled related claims for $459.2 million as part of a broader $17.1 billion agreement covering teen mental health.

New Mexico separately won a $375 million jury verdict against Meta in March 2026 over child safety failures; the judge in that case ordered $567 million directed to a state teen mental health fund.

With the appeal pending, the $25 billion figure is unlikely to be final.