Meta must pay New Mexico $25 billion, equal to 41% of its 2025 profit, and it accrues 15% interest

A New Mexico court ordered Meta Platforms to pay $25 billion in penalties on Wednesday, according to CNBC, which cited a court filing. The order follows a case that went to a Santa Fe jury in September, when jurors found Meta had misled state residents about how it protects their data. We covered that verdict at the time: the jury's 43.9 million violation count implied a $219 billion ceiling.

The ceiling has now been tested. The state was awarded $219.5 billion, CNBC reported, and the judge reduced it to $25 billion. Meta reports third-quarter results after the close today.

The number behind the number

$25 billion is easy to wave away against a company worth about $1.8 trillion. Nasdaq showed Meta's market value at $1.805 trillion at 1:50 PM ET, with the shares at $708.58, up 2.1% on the day. The fine is about 1.4% of that.

The comparison that matters for earnings is profit, not market value. Meta's filings on SEC EDGAR show net income of $60.458 billion for 2025 and $15.848 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2026. Against those:

If the full amount were booked in a single quarter it would exceed that quarter's profit. We do not know how Meta will account for it. Whether the company has already set aside money for this case, whether it treats the ruling as final, and whether it excludes the charge from adjusted figures are the questions to listen for on today's call. CNBC said it had asked Meta for comment; we have not seen a response.

The interest clock

One detail in the order deserves more attention than the headline. The judge ruled that interest accrues at 15% a year until the penalty is paid, CNBC reported. On $25 billion that is $3.75 billion a year, or about $10.3 million a day. A long appeal is not free for Meta if the judgment stands.

How it compares with Meta's other cases

CNBC lists the earlier amounts. A 2022 class action over the same scandal settled for $725 million. An August settlement with a coalition of state attorneys general, in a separate federal case on child safety and mental health, was nearly $17 billion. New Mexico was not part of that deal. The state's separate child-safety case produced a $375 million jury verdict in March and a $567 million abatement order, and Meta said it disagreed with that ruling and planned to appeal.

The new figure is larger than the 2022 settlement by a factor of about 34. The judge wrote that the record supports the highest penalty the statute allows, $5,000 per violation found by the jury, and then reduced the total from $219.5 billion to $25 billion.

Who else should read this

This ruling is about one company, but the arithmetic applies to anyone who collects customer data. The judge counted each misleading statement or practice as a separate violation and applied the top penalty to every one. A business with a privacy policy that does not match what it actually does, such as a store sending customer lists to a marketing vendor, can be measured the same way under a state unfair-practices law. Penalty rules differ by state and no small business is facing numbers like these. The practical point is that the policy on your website is a statement a regulator can test.

What to watch

• Meta's earnings after the close: any mention of the penalty, a reserve or an appeal, and its 2026 capital spending range of $130 billion to $145 billion.
• Whether Meta files an appeal in New Mexico and asks the court to pause the 15% interest.
• Whether other states that were not part of the August settlement cite this order.

Sources: CNBC; Investing.com; Meta Platforms filings on SEC EDGAR; Nasdaq. Percentages and daily interest are Chronicle calculations. This is market information, not investment advice.