New Mexico judge orders Meta to pay $25bn over Facebook user data
Meta reported last-quarter revenue of $64.6bn, up 26% and ahead of expectations of $63.3bn, but profits fell 37% to $13bn. Meta said the profit decline was dragged down by a $9.9bn charge related to a lawsuit concerning child protection and social media addiction.
In a separate case, a judge in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $25bn on Wednesday after a trial found that the company had misled the public about how it handled Facebook user data.
Meta also disclosed that its headcount stood at 66,775 at the end of September, 15% fewer than a year earlier.
Among Meta’s announcements on Wednesday night was an arrangement with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. The company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp said the arrangement would keep its chief executive living in California, where its headquarters are located, even if the state brings in a one-off billionaire tax. Under the deal, Zuckerberg is committed to remain a resident of the state, or wherever Meta maintains its base, for eight years, in return for new shares.
Meta said those shares come from a new class of non-voting stock the company is creating through a two-for-one stock split for all existing shareholders. Zuckerberg could sell some of the new Class C shares, and the proceeds could pay a potential multibillion-dollar tax bill if California passes the tax, without diluting his voting control of the company.
Forbes put Zuckerberg’s wealth at $239bn. The chief executive told Meta he was considering moving his primary residence elsewhere because Proposition 40 could expose him to a massive tax liability, potentially forcing him to sell voting shares to pay it.
Californians will vote early next month on Proposition 40, a one-time 5% tax on the roughly 250 billionaires who live in the state. Recent polling has shown that the measure remains short of majority support among voters.
Tech billionaires have been spending heavily to fight the measure, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Rohit Khanna, the US congressman representing California’s 17th congressional district, described Proposition 40 as a choice between standing with the working class or the oligarchs. “Every society is taxed. The only question is who will pay. In Trump’s America, working people pay more than they should, while billionaires are so unburdened that they are becoming trillionaires. In the America we seek, billionaires and trillionaires will pay their fair share, while working people will be unburdened,” Khanna wrote in the Guardian last week.
The disclosures put the announced residency and share arrangement alongside Meta’s revenue, profit, litigation and workforce figures.
Reuters contributed to The Guardian’s report.