One judge now holds Meta's privacy bill, and the bids are $3.45 billion and $40 billion

The charge, and dice already thrown

On Thursday New Mexico asked Judge Francis Mathew of Santa Fe's First Judicial District Court to order Meta to pay $35 billion to $40 billion for misleading Facebook users about their data, a bill that lands within weeks on a stock just off its best month since November 2022↗ ¹². Meta's lawyer urged a cap of $345 million to $3.45 billion ³. Mathew will rule by late October ³.

His question to both sides at Thursday's hearing↗ carries the whole story: "When the parties go to trial, they roll the dice. They have to accept the consequences of their decision to go to trial, do they not?" ¹

43.9 million violations, one statute's ceiling

The suit, filed in 2021, grew out of Cambridge Analytica's harvesting of data from as many as 87 million Facebook users ¹. On 25 September a jury found 26 of 29 statements by Meta's leadership↗, among them Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, false or deceptive ¹³. Counted against Facebook's 1.4 million New Mexico users in 2020, that is 43,899,725 violations of the state's Unfair Practices Act ³⁴.

The statute lets Mathew set the fine anywhere from $1 to $5,000 per violation, a theoretical ceiling of about $219.5 billion on the verdict↗ ³⁴. The state bid roughly a fifth of that arithmetic; Meta bid under 2 percent of it ¹³.

The fine is priced off the stock, not the harm

State lawyer Randi McGinn told the court the penalty should "speak to Meta in the only language it understands, which is money, and the value of its stock price," sized at about 20 percent of the possible awards, enough to dent the stock while surviving due process ¹.

Meta's Matt Nicholson called the request an "astronomical penalty" that would top any civil judgment in US history, dwarfing the $21 billion BP paid for Deepwater Horizon and built, he said, on statements over "more than a decade" with "no evidence that any statement harmed any New Mexicans" ¹³.

New Mexico is not asking what the lies cost. It is asking what Meta can feel.

Holders wear the number before anyone pays it

Holders wear it either way: the top ask nearly matches the $42.6 billion Meta earned in the first half of 2026↗ ⁷. The cash itself is years off. McGinn says Meta is likely to appeal any judgment, and New Mexico is unlikely to collect for years ³.

The stock closed Thursday at $725.93 ⁵, after a 27 percent September built on its Muse AI agent, its strongest month since November 2022 ². New Mexico has already drawn a $375 million jury penalty and a $567 million youth-fund order↗ from Meta in a child-safety case this year; Meta intends to appeal ⁶.

A ruling near the state's number hands every attorney general with a consumer statute a per-user, per-statement template. McGinn framed the ask as deterrence "not just for Meta but for any big company that would lie to the people of New Mexico" ³. No state has filed a copycat claim yet; the arithmetic that produced 43.9 million violations is simply easy to reuse ⁴.

A binary ruling lands inside four weeks

Mathew's number, due by late October, is a binary on a stock at $725.93 ³⁵. Near the state's ask, the fine would swallow most of a half-year's earnings; near Meta's cap, it would not reach a fifth of a single quarter's ⁷.

Either way Meta appeals, and McGinn herself puts collection years out ³. The appeal, not the check, is the second entry; the copycat filings, if they come, are the tail ⁴.