Judge orders Meta to pay New Mexico $25B in Cambridge Analytica case
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A judge in New Mexico ordered the technology giant Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found the company liable for misleading users about its privacy and content policies.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez (D) announced the judge’s order Wednesday, calling it “one of the single largest — if not the largest — single state verdict against the company in American history.”
“Today’s judgement from a state, which admittedly is not very big in terms of population, should be a clear warning to everyone in Big Tech, Mr. [Mark] Zuckerberg, Meta, social media companies, indeed AI companies,” Torrez said at a press conference.
The order from Santa Fe Judge Francis Mathew comes just weeks after jurors found Meta liable for more than 43 million violations of New Mexico’s consumer protection laws when the British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica harvested data from Facebook users for political ads during the 2016 election.
Following an expected appeals process, Torrez said the payment from Meta will be put toward public education in the state.
New Mexico was one of just two states that chose not to join the 48-state settlement with Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. The company agreed to pay $459 million as part of that settlement.
Attorneys for New Mexico originally sought $35 billion to $40 billion, suggesting the order would need to impact Meta’s stock price to establish real change, The Associated Press reported. Meta’s lawyers argued to pay no more than $3.4 billion, claiming anything more than $34 billion would violate due process.
Torrez told reporters he expects Meta to appeal, but New Mexico intends “to do everything in our power to make sure that those resources are eventually delivered” to the state.
“The fact that we received a judgment today that is less than the total statutory max shouldn’t be mistaken for the larger message,” Torrez said, adding the previously settled states “are sharing $459 million for the conduct at issue, and New Mexico just received a $25 billion judgement.”
“So I’ll leave it to you to determine whether and to what extent that counts as a victory,” he told reporters.
Wednesday’s order is the latest in a string of legal battles over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The Supreme Court in 2024 heard Facebook’s bid to block a shareholder lawsuit over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal from moving forward.
Shareholders sued the social media company after the public became widely aware of the scandal in 2018, accusing Facebook of misleading investors in an earlier securities filing by failing to mention Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of user data.
While the tech giant acknowledged in a 2016 filing that improper third-party use of its data could harm its business, it did not mention Cambridge Analytica. As a result, the shareholders argue, they were led to believe that no such incident had occurred.
Facebook argued its statements in the risk disclosure section of the securities filing were only about future events and did not suggest that such an event had never taken place.
The Supreme Court later dismissed the case without issuing a ruling on the merits.
Sophie Brams contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Read the full story at The Hill ↗
A judge in New Mexico ordered the technology giant Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found the company liable for misleading users about its privacy and content policies. New…
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Skip to content
A judge in New Mexico ordered the technology giant Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found the company liable for misleading users about its privacy and content policies.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez (D) announced the judge’s order Wednesday, calling it “one of the single largest — if not the largest — single state verdict against the company in American history.”
“Today’s judgement from a state, which admittedly is not very big in terms of population, should be a clear warning to everyone in Big Tech, Mr. [Mark] Zuckerberg, Meta, social media companies, indeed AI companies,” Torrez said at a press conference.
The order from Santa Fe Judge Francis Mathew comes just weeks after jurors found Meta liable for more than 43 million violations of New Mexico’s consumer protection laws when the British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica harvested data from Facebook users for political ads during the 2016 election.
Following an expected appeals process, Torrez said the payment from Meta will be put toward public education in the state.
New Mexico was one of just two states that chose not to join the 48-state settlement with Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. The company agreed to pay $459 million as part of that settlement.
Attorneys for New Mexico originally sought $35 billion to $40 billion, suggesting the order would need to impact Meta’s stock price to establish real change, The Associated Press reported. Meta’s lawyers argued to pay no more than $3.4 billion, claiming anything more than $34 billion would violate due process.
Torrez told reporters he expects Meta to appeal, but New Mexico intends “to do everything in our power to make sure that those resources are eventually delivered” to the state.
“The fact that we received a judgment today that is less than the total statutory max shouldn’t be mistaken for the larger message,” Torrez said, adding the previously settled states “are sharing $459 million for the conduct at issue, and New Mexico just received a $25 billion judgement.”
“So I’ll leave it to you to determine whether and to what extent that counts as a victory,” he told reporters.
Wednesday’s order is the latest in a string of legal battles over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The Supreme Court in 2024 heard Facebook’s bid to block a shareholder lawsuit over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal from moving forward.
Shareholders sued the social media company after the public became widely aware of the scandal in 2018, accusing Facebook of misleading investors in an earlier securities filing by failing to mention Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of user data.
While the tech giant acknowledged in a 2016 filing that improper third-party use of its data could harm its business, it did not mention Cambridge Analytica. As a result, the shareholders argue, they were led to believe that no such incident had occurred.
Facebook argued its statements in the risk disclosure section of the securities filing were only about future events and did not suggest that such an event had never taken place.
The Supreme Court later dismissed the case without issuing a ruling on the merits.
Sophie Brams contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Read the full story at The Hill ↗
Skip to content
A judge in New Mexico ordered the technology giant Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found the company liable for misleading users about its privacy and content policies.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez (D) announced the judge’s order Wednesday, calling it “one of the single largest — if not the largest — single state verdict against the company in American history.”
“Today’s judgement from a state, which admittedly is not very big in terms of population, should be a clear warning to everyone in Big Tech, Mr. [Mark] Zuckerberg, Meta, social media companies, indeed AI companies,” Torrez said at a press conference.
The order from Santa Fe Judge Francis Mathew comes just weeks after jurors found Meta liable for more than 43 million violations of New Mexico’s consumer protection laws when the British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica harvested data from Facebook users for political ads during the 2016 election.
Following an expected appeals process, Torrez said the payment from Meta will be put toward public education in the state.
New Mexico was one of just two states that chose not to join the 48-state settlement with Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. The company agreed to pay $459 million as part of that settlement.
Attorneys for New Mexico originally sought $35 billion to $40 billion, suggesting the order would need to impact Meta’s stock price to establish real change, The Associated Press reported. Meta’s lawyers argued to pay no more than $3.4 billion, claiming anything more than $34 billion would violate due process.
Torrez told reporters he expects Meta to appeal, but New Mexico intends “to do everything in our power to make sure that those resources are eventually delivered” to the state.
“The fact that we received a judgment today that is less than the total statutory max shouldn’t be mistaken for the larger message,” Torrez said, adding the previously settled states “are sharing $459 million for the conduct at issue, and New Mexico just received a $25 billion judgement.”
“So I’ll leave it to you to determine whether and to what extent that counts as a victory,” he told reporters.
Wednesday’s order is the latest in a string of legal battles over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The Supreme Court in 2024 heard Facebook’s bid to block a shareholder lawsuit over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal from moving forward.
Shareholders sued the social media company after the public became widely aware of the scandal in 2018, accusing Facebook of misleading investors in an earlier securities filing by failing to mention Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of user data.
While the tech giant acknowledged in a 2016 filing that improper third-party use of its data could harm its business, it did not mention Cambridge Analytica. As a result, the shareholders argue, they were led to believe that no such incident had occurred.
Facebook argued its statements in the risk disclosure section of the securities filing were only about future events and did not suggest that such an event had never taken place.
The Supreme Court later dismissed the case without issuing a ruling on the merits.
Sophie Brams contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Read the full story at The Hill ↗
This lens runs the verified story through Cinnamon's AI — wired in the next step.
- A judge in New Mexico ordered the technology giant Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found the company liable for misleading users about its privacy and content policies.