No court has ordered Meta to pay $40 billion. New Mexico is asking a judge to impose between $35 billion and $40 billion in civil penalties after a jury found Facebook liable for 43,899,725 violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act. Meta has asked the judge to cap the penalties at $3.45 billion. The judge’s decision was still pending as of October 3, 2026.
What the jury decided—and what it did not
On September 25, 2026, a New Mexico jury found that Facebook committed 43,899,725 violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act. The jury established liability and counted violations; it did not set the civil penalty. New Mexico’s Department of Justice described the findings as covering statements about how Facebook collected, protected, shared, and used personal information, as well as claims about misinformation, hate speech, and the company’s investigation of third-party apps after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. New Mexico Department of Justice
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How much each side says Meta should pay
| Position | Amount | Status |
|---|---|---|
| New Mexico | $35 billion to $40 billion | Requested by the state at the October 1, 2026 penalty hearing; not yet ordered. |
| Meta | $3.45 billion | Meta’s proposed cap; the company also argued the state’s request was unconstitutional. |
Reuters reported that Judge Francis Mathew expected to issue a ruling later in October. Until he does, the state’s upper figure is a request, not an award or a final bill. Reuters
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The privacy lawsuit was filed in 2021, following revelations that a third-party app had harvested data from as many as 87 million Facebook users without their consent, according to Reuters. The trial addressed more than that episode: jurors considered a broader set of company representations about data access, misinformation, hate speech, internal policies, and Facebook’s post-scandal investigation of third-party apps. Cambridge Analytica is important context, but it does not describe the full scope of the jury’s findings. Reuters Associated Press
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Why the violation count is not the penalty
New Mexico’s Department of Justice says the Unfair Practices Act allows a maximum of up to $5,000 per willful violation. That statutory ceiling is not what the judge has ordered in this case. Multiplying the jury’s violation count by the maximum would produce a theoretical figure, not the state’s requested amount or a court award. New Mexico has asked for $35 billion to $40 billion, while Meta has proposed a lower cap; the judge must decide the penalty. New Mexico Department of Justice
This is separate from New Mexico’s child-safety case
New Mexico also obtained a $942 million judgment against Meta in a separate child-safety proceeding. That case involved Facebook and Instagram and included five years of court-supervised reforms. The $942 million judgment is not part of the penalty being considered in this privacy case, and the two amounts should not be combined. New Mexico Department of Justice
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What the sides said after the verdict
After the verdict, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said: “For years, Facebook operated as if the rules that apply to everyone else didn’t apply to them. Today, a jury of New Mexicans said otherwise.” New Mexico Department of Justice
Meta’s spokesperson Andy Stone defended the company’s approach to its platforms, saying: “Meta’s platforms are forums for free expression. We have a First Amendment right to manage those platforms in a way we believe best serves the interests of our community. This means prioritizing free speech, protecting our users’ information and giving them control over their data,” as quoted by the Associated Press. Associated Press
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