On October 21, 2026, New Mexico District Court Judge Francis J. Mathew ordered Meta Platforms, Inc. to pay the state $25 billion after a jury found the company liable for misleading Facebook users about their data and privacy. Meta said it would appeal.
What the jury found
The jury returned its verdict in September 2026. It found 26 of 29 statements by Meta and its leadership misleading, according to the reported account of the verdict. Jurors rejected a separate claim that Facebook had made false statements about removing harmful content, including COVID-19 misinformation.
The case concerned statements about user data and followed the Cambridge Analytica data-harvesting scandal. A third-party personality quiz collected information from roughly 87 million Facebook profiles and sold it to Cambridge Analytica.
Why the calculated maximum was higher than the award
The jury found 43,899,720 willful violations of New Mexico consumer-protection law. At the reported statutory maximum of $5,000 per violation, the calculation reaches $219,498,600,000. That figure is the maximum calculated from the violation count and per-violation cap; the judge ordered $25 billion. Reports say Mathew found a penalty above $219 billion warranted before reducing the award.
| Measure | Amount | What it represents |
| Willful violations | 43,899,720 | Jury finding |
| Maximum per violation | $5,000 | Statutory cap |
| Calculated maximum | $219,498,600,000 | 43,899,720 × $5,000 |
| Ordered penalty | $25 billion | Amount ordered for New Mexico |
Where the money goes and what happens next
The civil penalty goes to New Mexico education spending under the state constitution. It is not a direct payment to individual Facebook users.
Meta said it would appeal. Collection could take years during appeal proceedings, with interest accruing during that period.
