A New Mexico court ordered Meta to pay a $25 billion penalty on Wednesday, a decision stemming from the Cambridge Analytica scandal that began nearly a decade ago. The ruling follows a September jury verdict in Santa Fe that found the social media company liable for misleading state residents regarding its data collection, safeguarding, and content moderation practices.
The penalty amount was revealed in a court filing, which noted that while the jury determined Meta committed over 43 million violations of the state's unfair practices act, the judge held the authority to set the final fine. Each violation carried a potential civil penalty of up to $5,000. The filing indicated that the state was initially awarded $219.5 billion, but the judge reduced this figure to the final $25 billion penalty.
This legal outcome occurred because New Mexico was not part of a separate federal settlement that Meta reached with a coalition of state attorneys general in August. That broader agreement, valued at nearly $17 billion, addressed child safety and mental health concerns but did not cover the specific data privacy claims arising from the Cambridge Analytica incident. Consequently, New Mexico's case proceeded to trial.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal first emerged in 2018, when allegations surfaced that the political consulting firm had improperly accessed the personal information of 87 million Facebook users. The controversy intensified scrutiny on the company's data handling practices before it officially changed its name to Meta. In 2022, Meta agreed to pay $725 million to settle a related class action lawsuit.
Former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas filed the state's original lawsuit in 2021. Current Attorney General Raúl Torrez oversaw the trial that led to Wednesday's penalty order. Torrez also led a separate child-safety trial against Meta, where a jury ruled in March that the company should pay $375 million for violating the state's unfair practices act. A judge subsequently ordered Meta to pay an additional $567 million into an abatement fund, determining that Meta's actions constituted a public nuisance. Meta has stated it disagrees with that separate ruling and plans to appeal.
CNBC has reached out to Meta for comment on the new $25 billion penalty order.