Meta Faces Lawsuits, Layoffs and Data Center Concerns

Meta is managing multiple legal cases, workforce reductions and local disputes over data center construction while reporting $56.3 billion in first-quarter revenue and nearly $26.8 billion in net income.

The lawmaker displayed jars of murky water and said families near the site reported declining water pressure and reliance on bottled water. Officials said they would review the issues. Meta stated that it works with local utilities to avoid negative impacts and that an independent groundwater study found no effect on residents from the data center's construction and operations.

Meta told employees it would cut about 10 percent of its workforce, around 8,000 jobs, beginning May 20. The company also said it would stop plans to fill about 6,000 open roles. The chief executive said the use of artificial intelligence is intended to improve efficiency and is not driving the layoffs.

On the same day it reported first-quarter results, Meta raised its 2026 capital expenditure outlook to between $125 billion and $145 billion.

A New Mexico jury found that Meta violated the state's consumer protection law by misleading users about the safety of its platforms for children. Jurors imposed the maximum civil penalty of $5,000 per violation, totaling $375 million. In California, a jury found Meta and YouTube liable in a separate case over harm to children from social media use and awarded a 20-year-old plaintiff $3 million in damages.

Meta said it plans to appeal both verdicts.

A federal judge ruled in Meta's favor in an antitrust case brought by the Federal Trade Commission, finding that regulators failed to show the company holds monopoly power in social networking. The ruling blocked efforts to unwind Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

Reality Labs reported a $6.02 billion operating loss on $955 million in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2025 and has accumulated roughly $80 billion in operating losses since late 2020.