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Meta ordered to pay $25 billion in fine linked to 8-year-old data privacy scandal
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Published 10/21/2026 1:27:53 PM
Judge orders Meta to pay $25 billion in trial related to 8-year-old data privacy scandal
A New Mexico state court has ordered Facebook-parent company Meta to pay a $25 billion penalty following a long legal battle stemming from the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal from nearly a decade ago. The judgment, revealed in a court filing on Wednesday (October 21), follows a September verdict by a jury in a Santa Fe courthouse. Jurors found the social media giant liable for deceiving New Mexico residents regarding how it gathers and safeguards personal data, as well as how it stops harmful content from spreading across its platforms.
The jury determined that Meta committed more than 43 million individual violations of the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act, each subject to a statutory civil fine of up to $5,000. However, the final penalty amount was left to judicial discretion. The ruling revealed that while the state was initially awarded $219.5 billion, the court reduced the ultimate penalty to $25 billion. In his filing, New Mexico District Court Judge Francis Mathew delivered a rebuke of the company's past actions and internal practices, arguing that the maximum fine per violation was fully justified.
“The extraordinary number of willful violations found by the jury, the duration and repetition of the conduct, the breadth of subjects on which violations occurred, the involvement of senior
Facebookleadership, the size of New Mexico audiences reached, and the clear intentional and systematic nature of Facebook’s repeated misstatements established in the trial record support the highest level of penalty allowed by the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act - $5,000 per violation found by the jury,” Judge Mathew wrote.
Judge Mathew also ordered that the penalty will accrue interest at an annual rate of 15% until the judgment is settled in full.
The ruling pointed out that Facebook failed to live up to its public commitments following the 2018 Cambridge Analytica revelations, in which the political consultancy improperly gathered data belonging to an estimated 87 million users. Judge Mathew concluded that the tech firm “did not conduct the comprehensive investigation that it promised.”
Meta previously attempted to clear away nationwide litigation tied to the Cambridge Analytica fallout. In August, the tech giant agreed to an overarching $17 billion multi-state settlement with a coalition of state attorneys general in a broader federal lawsuit centered on child safety and mental health.
However, as New Mexico chose not to join that nationwide pact, the state's independent Cambridge Analytica lawsuit proceeded directly to trial in September. The original complaint was initiated in 2021 by former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas, with current Attorney General Raúl Torrez directing the courtroom trial to its conclusion.
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With Californians set to vote in just a few weeks on Proposition 40 – a measure proposing a one-time 5% wealth tax on the state's billionaires – Google co-founder Larry Page has emerged as the wealthiest tech titan to sever ties with the state should the measure pass. His departure is likely to deal a significant blow to California's revenue projections as he will be the richest techie to leave the state. The initiative specifically targets billionaires who were state residents as of January 1, 2026. While a few prominent executives, such as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, have stated they are "perfectly fine" with the proposal, multiple ultra-wealthy residents chose to exit before the January deadline.
Chief among them is the 53-year-old Page. Holding an estimated net worth of $292 billion, Page had deep roots in California spanning decades, Fortune reported, adding that had he remained a California resident past the cutoff date, he would have owed an estimated $15 billion under the one-time tax levy.
Moving entities to Delaware and buying big in Miami
State filings have revealed that Page began unwinding his operational and personal presence in California late last year.
According to an analysis of corporate records reported by Fortune, Page’s family office, Koop, was transferred out of California and officially incorporated in Delaware in late December. Multiple associated entities, including Flu Lab LLC, One Aero and Oceankind, followed the same route, moving their registrations from California to Delaware during the same month.
Simultaneously, Page redirected significant capital toward luxury real estate on the East Coast. The Wall Street Journal reported that Page acquired two premier estates in Miami for a combined $173.4 million, which includes Coconut Grove Estate ($101.5 million, 11,855-square-foot property) and a neighboring parcel purchased for $71.9 million.
The $29 billion dent in Prop 40’s target
The departures of top-tier billionaires have already weakened the potential financial yield of the ballot measure. Prop 40 was projected to generate roughly $100 billion for the state. However, according to an estimate by Fortune, just four departed tech leaders – Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Peter Thiel and former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick – would have collectively owed approximately $29 billion. Their relocations before the residency cutoff mean the state has effectively lost out on more than a quarter of the measure's total projected revenue pool before ballots are even counted.
Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, moved to Texas in 2020. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos who recently but briefly secured the second richest person spot, departed Seattle for Miami in late 2023, eventually selling his Hunts Point home for a record $63 million to live in a $237 million Miami compound with his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos.
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