Meta has told a federal court that four US states are seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties over claims it engineered Facebook and Instagram to hook young users, a figure the company put on the record in a filing on Monday. The sum, first reported by Reuters, sits uncomfortably close to Meta’s own market capitalisation of about $1.5 trillion.
The number appeared in Meta’s response to filings by California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey on how penalties should be calculated should the states prevail at trial. A judge cleared the states to try those claims after refusing to dismiss them, and independent estimates suggest the eventual payouts could dwarf even Meta’s vast AI budget.
Meta was quick to call the sum absurd. “A sanction of that size has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement,” the company wrote, arguing that the amount was unsupported by the evidence, according to the filing.
How the states reached $1.4 trillion is not fully public. Their own filings are sealed, but at a June hearing they said they had arrived at the total by multiplying the number of alleged violations by fine amounts fixed in state law.
The count of violations, in turn, rests on the estimated number of teens and young users the states say were affected. Multiply a per-violation fine across millions of minors and the arithmetic climbs fast, which is roughly how a consumer-protection case ends up rivalling a trillion-dollar company’s entire valuation.The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
