New Mexico District Judge Francis Joseph Mathew ordered Meta Platforms to pay $25 billion in civil penalties on Wednesday, concluding a trial that began nearly a decade after a third-party app harvested data from up to 87 million Facebook users and handed it to Cambridge Analytica.
The jury had found Meta liable in September for misleading New Mexicans about how the company collects and safeguards personal information. Jurors determined that 26 of 29 statements made by Meta and its executives were deceptive, tallying more than 43 million violations of the state's Unfair Practices Act. Each violation carried a statutory maximum penalty of $5,000.
In his ruling, Judge Mathew initially assessed the full statutory amount, which came to $219.5 billion. He then reduced the figure to $25 billion, citing constitutional constraints on excessive fines while nevertheless applying what he called the highest justified penalty level. In the court filing, Mathew wrote that the violations were systematic and intentional, with the involvement of senior Facebook leadership.
New Mexico Stood Alone
Forty-eight states had already settled Cambridge Analytica-related claims against Meta in August as part of a broader $18 billion federal agreement that also addressed child safety and mental health concerns. New Mexico declined to participate. Florida was the only other holdout, though it did not proceed to trial.
State Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the verdict should serve as a warning. At a press conference following the ruling, he declared the judgment "one of the largest, if not the single largest state verdict against a company in American history." He added: "This judgement should be a signal, an unambiguous message, to Silicon Valley."
The proceeds will go to New Mexico's school system. Torrez told reporters that the state may have paid for school construction "for the next 100 years," though he acknowledged the money would remain tied up during any appeals.
Meta Argues Harm Was Never Proven
Meta had urged Judge Mathew to cap penalties at $3.45 billion, arguing that anything higher would violate due process and deter businesses from operating in the state. Attorney Matt Nicholson called the amounts New Mexico sought "shocking to the conscience" during an October 1 hearing.
The company maintains that the state never proved any consumer was actually harmed by the statements in question. Meta has indicated it plans to appeal both the verdict and the penalty.
On Wednesday, Meta shares were trading around $707, up roughly 2% from the prior close. The company was scheduled to report third-quarter earnings later in the day.
A Scandal That Refuses to Close
The Cambridge Analytica affair first surfaced in March 2018 when The Guardian and The New York Times reported that a third-party personality quiz had harvested Facebook data under academic pretenses. The data went to Cambridge Analytica, a British political consultancy whose clients included Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Whistleblower Christopher Wylie told the Observer that the company had "exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people's profiles."
Facebook had learned of the data transfer in December 2015 but did not disclose it publicly until the news reports broke more than two years later. CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress in April 2018. The Federal Trade Commission fined the company $5 billion in 2019. A $725 million class-action settlement followed in 2022.
Cambridge Analytica itself declared bankruptcy and shut down in May 2018, only months after the scandal went public.
The New Mexico ruling is not the state's first recent victory against Meta. In March, a separate Santa Fe jury found the company liable for misleading users about child safety on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, ordering $375 million in penalties. That case remains under appeal. A judge in that proceeding also directed Meta to contribute $567 million to an abatement fund, concluding that the company's conduct amounted to a public nuisance.
Whether the $25 billion figure survives appellate review is the open question. Meta has argued that penalties this large are constitutionally suspect. The next filing deadline has not been disclosed.
