Meta to pay $25B in New Mexico case over misleading Facebook users

A state judge has ordered Meta to pay a $25 billion civil penalty following a landmark trial over data privacy and user deception. The decision marks one of the largest financial penalties ever levied against a corporation in American history.

The ruling delivered by state District Court Judge Francis J. Mathew on Wednesday, 21 October 2026, caps a years-long legal battle initiated by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez in 2021. According to The Boston Globe, the lawsuit originated from the fallout of the Cambridge Analytica data breach, in which a political consulting firm improperly harvested personal information from roughly 87 million Facebook profiles to generate targeted political advertisements for the 2016 election.

Media additions

Meta ordered to pay New Mexico $25 billion for deceiving users about privacy on Facebook - The Boston Globe

Judge Mathew wrote in his ruling that executives consistently misled the public regarding platform operations.

"Facebook promised users that they (the users) controlled their data. This was false"

Judge Francis J. Mathew, via The Boston Globe

Jurors previously found that Meta committed tens of millions of violations under the state’s Unfair Practices Act. The court applied civil penalties based on public statements made by the company and its leadership. Vincent Joralemon, a senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, told the New York Post that the underlying fact pattern was damaging for the social media giant, noting that the judge had already reduced potential liabilities significantly from the statutory maximum.

Legal Party / Official	Proposed or Ordered Amount	Context
New Mexico Prosecutors	$35B – $40B	Argued for a sum high enough to impact Meta's stock price.
Judge Francis Mathew	$25B	Ordered civil penalty following the September jury verdict.
Meta Legal Defense	$3.4B – $3.45B	Argued higher amounts were unconstitutional and violated due process.

Unlike nearly all other US jurisdictions, New Mexico elected not to participate in a broader multistate agreement. As reported by ABC News, forty-eight other states agreed to an $18 billion settlement with Meta in August, which included provisions releasing the tech company from future liability tied to the Cambridge Analytica breach. Florida was the only other state besides New Mexico to remain outside that group deal.

Meta's chief legal officer, C.J. Mahoney, criticized the outcome.

"This ruling, and the Attorney General's approach to this 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"

C.J. Mahoney, Chief Legal Officer at Meta, via CBS News

The company maintained that the state failed to prove that local residents ever viewed the contested statements or suffered tangible harm.

Under the New Mexico Constitution, financial penalties recovered under consumer protection statutes are designated for state education spending. Torrez remarked that the award could fund school construction for generations, though he acknowledged that the capital will remain tied up while litigation proceeds.

The dispute follows separate legal challenges for the platform, including previous penalties concerning child safety standards on mobile applications.

What to Watch Next

• Meta is expected to formally file an appeal in the coming weeks to contest both the liability findings and the scale of the financial penalty.
• Legal analysts note that appellate courts may review how individual violations were calculated based on statewide audience reach.
• Interest on the $25 billion penalty will continue to accrue throughout the duration of the appeals process.