Meta

Meta anticipated earning about 10% of its total annual revenue, or $16 billion, from advertising for scams and banned items, according to internal documents reviewed by Reuters. The documents reveal that for at least three years, the company failed to stop a significant number of ads exposing its billions of users on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to fraudulent schemes, illegal casinos, and banned medical products. On average, around 15 billion “higher risk” scam ads, showing clear signs of fraud, were displayed daily on these platforms. Meta reportedly generates about $7 billion annually from these scam ads.

Many of these ads were linked to marketers flagged by Meta’s internal systems. However, the company only bans advertisers if fraud is at least 95% certain according to its systems. If less certain but still suspect, Meta imposes higher ad rates as a penalty instead of outright banning them. This approach aims to deter dubious advertisers without fully eliminating them. The company’s ad-personalization system also ensures that users who click on scam ads see more of them based on their interests.

The documents create an image of Meta grappling with the extent of abuse on its platforms while hesitating to take stronger actions that could impact its revenue. The acceptance of revenue from suspicious sources highlights a lack of oversight in the advertising industry, as noted by fraud expert Sandeep Abraham. Meta’s spokesperson, Andy Stone, counters that the documents provide a biased view and argues that the actual share of revenue from scam ads would be lower than estimated. He claimed the plan aimed to validate investments in combating fraud.

Stone mentioned that Meta has significantly reduced user reports of scam ads globally and removed millions of scam ad content in recent efforts. The company aims for major reductions in scam ads in the upcoming year. Despite this, internal research indicates that Meta’s platforms are central to the global fraud economy, with one presentation estimating they contribute to a third of all successful fraud in the U. S. Competitors were noted to have better systems to combat fraud.

As regulators step up pressure for stronger consumer protections, the documents reveal the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Meta for financial scam ads. In Britain, regulators identified Meta as the source of over half of the payment-related scam losses in 2023. The company has acknowledged that addressing illicit advertising may hurt its revenue.

Meta is investing heavily in technology and has plans for extensive capital expenditures in AI. CEO Mark Zuckerberg reassured investors that their advertising revenue can support these projects. The internal documents suggest a careful consideration of the financial impact of increasing measures against scam ads, indicating that while the company intends to reduce illicit revenue, it is wary of the potential business implications.

Despite planning to diminish scam ads’ revenue share, Meta is bracing for regulatory fines, estimating penalties that could reach up to $1 billion. However, these fines are viewed as comparatively minor against the income from scam ads, which already generates significant revenue. The leadership’s strategy shows a tendency to react to regulatory pressure rather than implementing proactive measures to vet advertisers effectively. Stone disputed claims that Meta’s policy is to act only under regulatory threat.

Meta has set limits on how much revenue it can afford to lose from actions against suspect advertisers. In early 2025, a document revealed that the team reviewing questionable ads was restricted to a loss of no more than 0.15% of company revenue, which equated to around $135 million from Meta’s total of $90 billion in the same period. A manager noted that this revenue cap included both scam ads and harmless ads that might be mistakenly blocked, indicating strict financial boundaries in their approach.

Under increasing pressure to manage scams more effectively, Meta’s executives proposed a moderate strategy to CEO Mark Zuckerberg in October 2024. Instead of a drastic approach, they suggested targeting countries where they anticipated regulatory action. Their goal was to reduce the revenue lost to scams, illegal gambling, and prohibited goods from approximately 10.1% in 2024 to 7.3% by the end of 2025, with further reductions planned for subsequent years.

A surge in online fraud was noted in 2022, when Meta uncovered a network of accounts pretending to be U. S. military members trying to scam Facebook users. Other scams, such as sextortion, were also rising. Yet, at that time, Meta invested little in automated systems to detect such scams and categorized them as a low-priority issue. Internal documents showed efforts were mainly focused on fraudsters impersonating celebrities, which threatened to alienate advertisers and users alike. However, layoffs at Meta affected the enforcement team, as many working on advertiser rights were let go, and resources shifted heavily toward virtual reality and AI projects.

Despite layoffs, Meta claimed to have increased its staff handling scam advertising. However, data from 2023 revealed that Meta was ignoring about 96% of valid scam reports filed by users, suggesting a significant gap in their response to customer concerns. The safety staff aimed to improve this by reducing the number of dismissed reports to no more than 75% in the future.

Instances of user frustration were evident, such as a recruiter for the Royal Canadian Air Force who lost access to her account after being hacked. Despite multiple reports to Meta, her account remained active, even sharing false cryptocurrency investment opportunities that defrauded her connections. Reports indicated that she had many people flag her account, but it took about a month before Meta finally removed it.

Meta refers to scams that do not involve paid ads as “organic,” which include free classified ads, fake dating profiles, and fraudulent medical claims. A report from December 2024 stated that users face approximately 22 billion organic scam attempts each day, alongside 15 billion scam ads, highlighting the company’s ongoing struggle to manage fraud effectively. Internal documents suggest that Meta’s efforts to police fraud are not capturing much of the scam activity occurring across its platforms.

In Singapore, police shared a list of 146 scams targeting local users, but Meta staff found that only 23% of these scams broke the platform’s policies. The remaining 77% went against the spirit of the rules but not the exact wording. Examples of unchecked scams included fake offers on designer clothes, false concert tickets, and job ads pretending to be from major tech firms. In one case, Meta discovered scam ads claiming to belong to the Canadian prime minister, yet the existing rules wouldn’t flag the account.

Even when advertisers are found to be scamming, the rules can be lenient. Small advertisers need to be flagged for scams eight times before being blocked, while larger ones can have over 500 complaints without being shut down. Some scams generated significant revenue; for example, four removed ads were linked to $67 million monthly.

An employee initiated reports highlighting the “Scammiest Scammer” each week to raise awareness, but some flagged accounts remained active for months. Meta tried to deter scammers by charging them more in ad auctions, labeling this practice “penalty bids. ” Advertisers suspected of fraud would have to bid higher amounts, thus reducing competition for legitimate advertisers. Meta aimed to decrease scam ads from this approach, which showed some success, resulting in fewer scam reports and a slight dip in overall ad revenue.

With information from Reuters

California’s tech companies, the epicenter of the state’s economy, sent politicians a loud message this year: Back down from restrictive artificial intelligence regulation or they’ll leave.

The tactic appeared to have worked, activists said, because some politicians weakened or scrapped guardrails to mitigate AI’s biggest risks.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected a bill aimed at making companion chatbots safer for children after the tech industry fought it. In his veto message, the governor raised concerns about placing broad limits on AI, which has sparked a massive investment spree and created new billionaires overnight around the San Francisco Bay Area.

Assembly Bill 1064 would have barred companion chatbot operators from making these AI systems available to minors unless the chatbots weren’t “foreseeably capable” of certain conduct, including encouraging a child to engage in self-harm. Newsom said he supported the goal, but feared it would unintentionally bar minors from using AI tools and learning how to use technology safely.

“We cannot prepare our youth for a future where AI is ubiquitous by preventing their use of these tools altogether,” he wrote in his veto message.

The bill’s veto was a blow to child safety advocates who had pushed it through the state Legislature and a win for tech industry groups that fought it. In social media ads, groups such as TechNet had urged the public to tell the governor to veto the bill because it would harm innovation and lead to students falling behind in school.

Organizations trying to rein in the world’s largest tech companies as they advance the powerful technology say the tech industry has become more empowered at the national and state levels.

Meta, Google, OpenAI, Apple and other major tech companies have strengthened their relationships with the Trump administration. Companies are funding new organizations and political action committees to push back against state AI policy while pouring money into lobbying.

In Sacramento, AI companies have lobbied behind the scenes for more freedom. California’s massive pool of engineering talent, tech investors and companies make it an attractive place for the tech industry, but companies are letting policymakers know that other states are also interested in attracting those investments and jobs. Big Tech is particularly sensitive to regulations in the Golden State because so many companies are headquartered there and must abide by its rules.

“We believe California can strike a better balance between protecting consumers and enabling responsible technological growth,” Robert Boykin, TechNet’s executive director for California and the Southwest, said in a statement.

Common Sense Media founder and Chief Executive Jim Steyer said tech lobbyists put tremendous pressure on Newsom to veto AB 1064. Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that rates and reviews technology and entertainment for families, sponsored the bill.

“They threaten to hurt the economy of California,” he said. “That’s the basic message from the tech companies.”

Advertising is among the tactics tech companies with deep pockets use to convince politicians to kill or weaken legislation. Even if the governor signs a bill, companies have at times sued to block new laws from taking effect.

“If you’re really trying to do something bold with tech policy, you have to jump over a lot of hurdles,” said David Evan Harris, senior policy advisor at the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy, which supported AB 1064. The group focuses on finding state-level solutions to threats that AI, disinformation and emerging technologies pose to democracy.

Tech companies have threatened to move their headquarters and jobs to other states or countries, a risk looming over politicians and regulators.

The California Chamber of Commerce, a broad-based business advocacy group that includes tech giants, launched a campaign this year that warned over-regulation could stifle innovation and hinder California.

“Making competition harder could cause California companies to expand elsewhere, costing the state’s economy billions,” the group said on its website.

From January to September, the California Chamber of Commerce spent $11.48 million lobbying California lawmakers and regulators on a variety of bills, filings to the California secretary of state show. During that period, Meta spent $4.13 million. A lobbying disclosure report shows that Meta paid the California Chamber of Commerce $3.1 million, making up the bulk of their spending. Google, which also paid TechNet and the California Chamber of Commerce, spent $2.39 million.

Amazon, Uber, DoorDash and other tech companies spent more than $1 million each. TechNet spent around $800,000.

The threat that California companies could move away has caught the attention of some politicians.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who has investigated tech companies over child safety concerns, indicated that despite initial concern, his office wouldn’t oppose ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s restructuring plans. The new structure gives OpenAI’s nonprofit parent a stake in its for-profit public benefit corporation and clears the way for OpenAI to list its shares.

Bonta blessed the restructuring partly because of OpenAI’s pledge to stay in the state.

“Safety will be prioritized, as well as a commitment that OpenAI will remain right here in California,” he said in a statement last week. The AG’s office, which supervises charitable trusts and ensures these assets are used for public benefit, had been investigating OpenAI’s restructuring plan over the last year and a half.

OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said he’s glad to stay in California.

“California is my home, and I love it here, and when I talked to Attorney General Bonta two weeks ago I made clear that we were not going to do what those other companies do and threaten to leave if sued,” he posted on X.

Critics — which included some tech leaders such as Elon Musk, Meta and former OpenAI executives as well as nonprofits and foundations — have raised concerns about OpenAI’s restructuring plan. Some warned it would allow startups to exploit charitable tax exemptions and let OpenAI prioritize financial gain over public good.

Lawmakers and advocacy groups say it’s been a mixed year for tech regulation. The governor signed Assembly Bill 56, which requires platforms to display labels for minors that warn about social media’s mental health harms. Another piece of signed legislation, Senate Bill 53, aims to make AI developers more transparent about safety risks and offers more whistleblower protections.

The governor also signed a bill that requires chatbot operators to have procedures to prevent the production of suicide or self-harm content. But advocacy groups, including Common Sense Media, removed their support for Senate Bill 243 because they said the tech industry pushed for changes that weakened its protections.

Newsom vetoed other legislation that the tech industry opposed, including Senate Bill 7, which requires employers to notify workers before deploying an “automated decision system” in hiring, promotions and other employment decisions.

Called the “No Robo Bosses Act,” the legislation didn’t clear the governor, who thought it was too broad.

“A lot of nuance was demonstrated in the lawmaking process about the balance between ensuring meaningful protections while also encouraging innovation,” said Julia Powles, a professor and executive director of the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law & Policy.

The battle over AI safety is far from over. Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), who co-wrote AB 1064, said she plans to revive the legislation.

Child safety is an issue that both Democrats and Republicans are examining after parents sued AI companies such as OpenAI and Character.AI for allegedly contributing to their children’s suicides.

“The harm that these chatbots are causing feels so fast and furious, public and real that I thought we would have a different outcome,” Bauer-Kahan said. “It’s always fascinating to me when the outcome of policy feels to be disconnected from what I believe the public wants.”

Steyer from Common Sense Media said a new ballot initiative includes the AI safety protections that Newsom vetoed.

“That was a setback, but not an overall defeat,” he said about the veto of AB 1064. “This is a David and Goliath situation, and we are David.”

Meta Platforms (META 0.52%) is no longer just a social media giant. It’s building one of the world’s largest AI infrastructures, recruiting elite talent, and embedding artificial intelligence into every layer of its ecosystem — from apps and ads to AR glasses.

While OpenAI and Google dominate the spotlight, Meta is quietly constructing the foundation to lead the next decade of AI development. Here’s how it plans to win.

Image source: Getty Images.

Building the backbone: A massive infrastructure bet

Meta’s AI ambitions rest on one of the biggest infrastructure buildouts in tech history. The company plans to spend $60 to 65 billion in capital expenditures this year, channeling much of that into data centers and custom AI hardware. By the end of 2025, Meta expects to operate over 1.3 million GPUs — a scale few companies can match.

This massive investment isn’t just brute force spending. It’s a strategic move to gain control. Meta is already testing its own AI chip, designed to reduce reliance on Nvidia and optimize training efficiency. Like Amazon‘s in-house silicon program, this initiative gives Meta tighter control over cost, performance, and innovation speed.

The company is also expanding a global network of data centers equipped with liquid cooling and energy-efficient designs. These facilities will train large language models such as LLaMA 3 and future generations while powering AI-driven features across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

For Meta, infrastructure is more than a resource — it’s a moat. Every improvement in computing efficiency compounds across billions of users and trillions of interactions. That scale gives Meta a self-reinforcing infrastructure advantage.

Investing in people

Technology changes fast, but exceptional people adapt and shape the future. Meta understands that better than most. Over the past year, the company has aggressively recruited top AI researchers and engineers from DeepMind, OpenAI, and Anthropic.

In a bold move, Meta hired Alexandr Wang, the founder of Scale AI, to lead its new Superintelligence division. And that’s after investing $14.3 billion in Scale AI, the AI company Wang founded after dropping out of MIT. The hire signals Meta’s intent to compete not just in applied AI but in the broader race toward artificial general intelligence.

Zuckerberg’s philosophy is straightforward: world-class talent compounds like capital. So, it makes sense to spend heavily to acquire the best talent. This strategy is not new to Meta. Years ago, it paid a hefty sum ($16 billion) to acquire WhatsApp early on — mainly for the talent and technology.

While such a strategy does not guarantee an outcome, it has its advantages, particularly in securing the best talents — while eliminating a potential future competitor. That’s precisely what Meta did with its WhatsApp deal, and the learnings from the WhatsApp acquisition helped fuel the development of Messenger, Meta’s own messaging app.

Integration: Hardware, software, and ecosystem

Meta’s most significant edge lies in integration — uniting infrastructure, talent, and products under one ecosystem. The company’s open-source large language model, LLaMA, already powers its AI-driven functions such as real-time translation and intelligent assistants across Messenger and WhatsApp. Each deployment brings new data, which strengthens the next generation of models.

But Meta isn’t stopping at software. Its Reality Labs division is bringing AI into the physical world through devices like the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which include conversational assistance, translation, and image recognition. Zuckerberg envisions a future where AI becomes ambient — invisible, intuitive, and always available.

Over time, Meta’s ecosystem could span everything from LLaMA models running on powerful clusters to lightweight AI running directly on AR glasses or smartphones. With more than 3 billion users, Meta holds an enormous testing ground for refining these systems at scale.

What does it mean for investors?

Meta’s AI strategy isn’t about racing to release the flashiest model. It’s about building the foundation of the next computing era. By investing heavily in hardware, empowering world-class talent, and integrating AI into every layer of its ecosystem, Meta aims to become the operating system of the AI age.

Execution remains the real test. Building trillion-parameter models and next-generation chips is one challenge; translating them into durable products is another. But Meta has a history of thriving when it builds patiently, at scale, and in plain sight. And that’s precisely what it’s doing right now.

Investors looking to invest in AI companies should keep the stock on watch.

October is a busy month for the stock market, because it’s when companies start reporting their operating results for the quarter ended Sept. 30. As has been the case for the last few years, Wall Street will be laser-focused on the tech giants powering the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, because they typically deliver the fastest revenue and earnings growth.

Meta Platforms (META -0.37%) is one of those companies. It’s scheduled to release its third-quarter results on Oct. 29, and management’s guidance points to a further acceleration in its revenue growth, thanks largely to AI. The upcoming report could be a very positive catalyst for Meta stock, so here’s why investors might want to pay attention.

Image source: Getty Images.

Look for accelerating revenue growth

More than 3.4 billion people use at least one of Meta’s social media apps every single day, which include Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Considering that is nearly half the population of the entire planet, finding new users is getting harder and harder, which is why the company is focused on boosting engagement instead.

Simply put, the longer each user spends on Meta’s apps, the more ads they see, and the more money the company makes. AI is a huge part of that strategy; Meta uses the technology in its algorithms to learn what content each user likes to see, so it can show them more of it. During the second quarter of 2025 (ended June 30), this drove a 6% increase in the amount of time users spent on Instagram compared to the year-ago period, and a 5% increase for Facebook.

Meta adopted a similar strategy for its ad-recommendation engine to target users more accurately on behalf of businesses. During Q2, this led to a 5% increase in conversions on Instagram, and a 3% increase on Facebook. This typically means Meta can charge more money per ad because businesses are yielding a higher return on their marketing spend.

The social media giant generated $47.5 billion in total revenue during the quarter, which was a 22% increase from the year-ago period. That marked an acceleration from the first quarter when revenue jumped by 16%. Management’s guidance suggests the company delivered as much as $50.5 billion in revenue during the third quarter, which would represent even faster growth of 24%.

That would be a very bullish result for Meta stock on Oct. 29.

Here’s an even more important number to watch

Meta’s AI strategy also involves developing new features, like its Meta AI chatbot which can answer complex questions, generate images, or even join your group chat to settle debates. It only launched in late 2023, yet it already has almost a billion monthly active users.

Meta AI is powered by Meta’s Llama family of large language models, which are improving so rapidly that they already rival some of the best models from leading start-ups like OpenAI and Anthropic, even though those companies had a multiyear head start on development. But in order for the Llama models to continue improving, Meta has to invest heavily in data center infrastructure and chips to unlock the necessary computing power.

The company came into 2025 expecting to allocate somewhere between $60 billion and $65 billion to capital expenditures (capex) for the year, but it has since revised those numbers to $66 billion and $72 billion. Meta would only spend that kind of money on AI infrastructure if it expected a positive financial return, and the signs are already there considering the company’s growing engagement, higher ad conversions, and accelerating revenue growth.

A further upward revision to Meta’s 2025 capex forecast on Oct. 29 would probably be bullish for its stock, because it might be a signal that management expects an even bigger payoff than originally anticipated.

Meta’s stock looks like a bargain heading into Oct. 29

Meta shares are trading at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 25.7 as I write this, making it the cheapest stock in the “Magnificent Seven,” which is the group of tech titans driving the AI revolution forward.

PE Ratio data by YCharts

Personally, I think Meta deserves a much higher valuation considering it grew its earnings per share by a whopping 38% in the second quarter, outpacing the earnings growth of every other Magnificent Seven company except Nvidia.

Typically, investors will pay a premium for a company that is growing quickly, so there might be some upside on the table for Meta stock through multiple expansion alone. If the company’s third-quarter results match or exceed the high end of management’s guidance on Oct. 29, that could be the spark that ignites a powerful rally for the stock into the end of the year.

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Few stocks are as directly exposed to artificial intelligence as CoreWeave (CRWV 0.72%). The AI cloud infrastructure company reinvented itself, transitioning from a crypto mining company by repurposing its GPUs to provide AI computing power to customers like Microsoft, Nvidia, and OpenAI.

With the AI boom in full swing, that business model has led to jaw-dropping growth. In its second quarter, its revenue jumped 206% to $1.21 billion, showing how fast demand for its services is ramping up.

Now, CoreWeave just got another shot in the arm as the stock jumped 12% on Tuesday after announcing another blockbuster deal, this time with Meta Platforms (META 1.35%).

Image source: Getty Images.

What’s happening with CoreWeave and Meta?

Meta is committing to spend up to $14.2 billion through 2032 on cloud computing capacity from CoreWeave, with an option to expand its commitment.

The deal comes at a time when Meta has been ramping up its spending on AI, seeing it as a must-win for its future. In June, Meta acquired a 49% stake in Scale AI, a data-labeling start-up, and poached its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to run its new AI lab.

On the same day that the CoreWeave news came out, Meta also announced that it’s buying the chip start-up Rivos, which designs chips based on RISC-V architecture, an alternative to those used by leading CPU architecture designers Arm, Intel, and AMD. Rivos is also expected to help Meta build out full-stack AI systems.

For CoreWeave, the deal builds on the earlier momentum it earned when it signed an expanded $6.5 billion agreement with OpenAI in September, bringing its total contract with OpenAI to $22.4 billion.

The drumbeat of positive news for AI includes rival Nebius’s $17 billion deal with Microsoft, Oracle’s huge cloud computing forecast, and CoreWeave’s own wins, including OpenAI, Meta, and a $6.3 billion deal with Nvidia, in which it will buy any of CoreWeave’s unused capacity, effectively backstopping the company’s growth.

Those news items, and improving sentiment around CoreWeave, sparked a recovery in the stock last month. After falling by more than 50% from its peak in June, CoreWeave jumped more than 50% off its lows early in September.

Is CoreWeave overvalued?

CoreWeave is a challenging stock to value. The company is delivering phenomenal top-line growth, but it’s also reporting huge losses. The company’s business model is risky. It’s borrowing billions of dollars to buy Nvidia GPUs and build out the infrastructure to provide next-generation AI computing.

That high-interest debt has also led CoreWeave to pay significant interest expense, set to be above $1 billion this year, essentially preventing CoreWeave from turning a profit.

For most stocks, to determine an appropriate valuation, you just look at the numbers. However, CoreWeave is in a class of its own. Given its growth rate, in which revenue is still tripling, the upside potential for the stock is tremendous, and conventional cloud computing businesses like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure have shown how profitable cloud computing can be at scale.

Rather than parsing the numbers for CoreWeave to determine whether the stock is overvalued, investors are better off considering the future of the AI boom. If the massive capex buildout continues, including on CoreWeave’s infrastructure, the stock is a good bet to be a winner. At a market cap of $66 billion, the stock still has room to move higher.

However, if the AI boom turns into a bubble and spending suddenly slows, CoreWeave is likely to plunge. While it’s locked in multi-billion-dollar deals with the likes of Meta, the company will need more of those to turn profitable and justify its current valuation.

Either way, expect the volatility in the stock to continue.

On Monday, YouTube became the latest media and tech company to settle one of President Trump’s lawsuits.

The Google-owned streamer agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit Trump filed after his account was banned following the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol. That brings Trump’s haul from media and tech companies to more than $90 million in the last year.

Some of these suits deal with conflicts the president has experienced with news networks such as ABC and CBS. Others confront the fallout from the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Some of the settlement money will pay for renovations to a presidential library Trump is building on 2.6 acres of waterfront property in Miami. Other funds will go to the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall, with the intention of building a Mar-a-Lago-style ballroom, which is expected to cost $200 million overall.

Here’s a rundown of the payouts:

YouTube: $24.5 million

After the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, YouTube suspended the president’s account on the platform because of Trump’s alleged role in the insurrection. At the time, the company had cited “concerns about the ongoing potential for violence” and violation of its “policies for inciting violence.”

Trump’s lawsuit, filed in 2021 at the U.S. District Court in Northern California, argued the account’s suspension was “censorship.” Before the case was settled, YouTube had already lifted its suspension on Trump in March 2023, in light of the then-upcoming presidential race.

In court documents filed Monday, Alphabet, the parent company of YouTube and Google, did not admit any wrongdoing in the matter. The company did not agree to make any policy or product changes in the deal.

Of the $24.5 million, $22 million is going to Trump, who will contribute the money to the Trust for the National Mall, which is “dedicated to restoring, preserving, and elevating the National Mall” as well as supporting the construction of the White House State Ballroom, according to the filing.

Alphabet will also have to pay an additional $2.5 million to other plaintiffs in the case, including the American Conservative Union and writer Naomi Wolf.

Social media platforms Facebook (now Meta) and Twitter (now X) had suspended Trump’s accounts over Jan. 6, 2021. At the time, Twitter put out a statement, saying that recent tweets from his “account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter” had to be suspended to avoid “the risk of further incitement of violence.”

Mark Zuckerberg of Meta also posted a statement on Facebook after banning Trump’s Meta accounts. He wrote, “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.”

In July of that year, Trump sued the companies for “censorship.”

By January 2023, Meta had reinstated Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, as had X in 2022.

Shortly before Trump was going to take office for his second term, in January 2025, Meta decided to pay the incoming president $25 million to settle the lawsuit. Elon Musk, who had purchased Twitter and renamed it “X” in the interim, agreed to pay $10 million to settle its Trump case.

Paramount Global: $16 million

Paramount Global agreed to pay $16 million to resolve Trump’s legal salvo against “60 Minutes” over the editing of an interview with his 2024 opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump claimed “60 Minutes” edited an interview with Harris to make her look better and bolster her chances in the election. CBS denied the claims, saying the edits were standard and the case was viewed as frivolous by 1st Amendment experts.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that CBS “did everything possible to illegally elect Kamala, including completely and corruptly changing major answers to Interview questions, but it just didn’t work for them.”

Last May, CBS offered $16 million to settle the civil suit filed in Texas. The lump sum included the president’s legal fees and an agreement that “60 Minutes” will release transcripts of interviews with future presidential candidates.

Less than a month after the settlement, the FCC approved Skydance Media’s acquisition of Paramount, which owns CBS.

Disney: $16 million

Earlier this year, ABC news anchor George Stephanopoulos appeared on the network’s “This Week” news program and asserted that Trump was found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. In May 2023, a jury in New York declined to find Trump liable for rape, but did find him liable for sexual abuse of Carroll.

Trump responded to the on-air comments with a defamation lawsuit filed in federal court in Florida. The lawsuit was settled by ABC News, owned by Disney, last December. Disney agreed to pay $15 million toward Trump’s presidential library and $1 million of Trump’s legal fees.

The settlement also included an editor’s note, posted on the ABC News website, expressing regret for Stephanopoulos’ comments.

Times staff writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.

Meta Platforms (META -0.61%) is one of the most dominant companies on the face of the planet. Through its various social media apps, it counts a whopping 3.48 billion daily active users. There might be no other business that has this kind of reach, impacting so many people each and every day.

This “Magnificent Seven” stock has been a huge winner, more than tripling in the past five years. But can Meta shares turn a $10,000 investment into $50,000 by 2030?

Image source: Getty Images.

Lower expectations

If an investment rose five-fold in a five-year period, it implies a compound annual gain of 38%. This is an unbelievable result that might typically only come from hyper-growth companies or from struggling businesses trading at dirt cheap valuations that start reporting improving financials as they successfully turn things around.

To be clear, Meta isn’t going to put up a 400% total return between now and the end of the decade. This is a more mature company. However, if the stock price and valuation tank for whatever reason, like they did in 2022, there might be huge upside in the years that follow.

Should you buy Meta stock now?

While Meta won’t climb five-fold by the end of the decade, turning $10,000 into $50,000, it still looks like a smart investment. Revenue and earnings per share are soaring at impressive rates. And leadership is fully focused on developing artificial intelligence capabilities.

It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the stock double over the next five years. The current valuation is also reasonable, at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 26.4. Investors should consider buying shares today.

President Trump’s new sky-high visa fees have shaken Silicon Valley’s tech giants as they contemplate a surge in the cost of hiring global talent and a new tactic the White House can use to keep Silicon Valley in line.

The tech industry was already navigating an economy with higher and unpredictable tariffs, when last week the Trump administration threw another curveball aimed directly at its bottom line: a $100,000 fee for the visas used to hire certain skilled foreign workers. The industry relies heavily on the H-1B visa program to bring in a wide range of engineers, coders, and other top talent to the United States.

The rollout has sparked confusion among businesses, immigration lawyers and current H-1B visa holders.

Over the weekend, the Trump administration clarified that the new fee will apply to new visas, isn’t annual and doesn’t prevent current H-1B visa holders from traveling in and outside of the country. Companies would have to pay the fee with any new H-1B visa petitions submitted after a specific time on Sept. 21, the White House said.

On Monday, the Trump administration also clarified that certain professions, such as doctors, may be exempt from the fee. Some observers are concerned that a selective application of the fee could be a way the White House can reward its friends and punish its detractors.

Meta, Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft have been strengthening their ties with the Trump administration by committing to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the United States.

Still, immigration has long been a contentious issue between the Trump administration and tech executives, some of whom were on a H-1B visa before they co-founded or led some of the world’s largest tech companies.

One of the most vocal supporters of the H-1B visas: Elon Musk, who backed Trump but has publicly sparred with him after he led the federal government’s efforts to slash spending. Musk, who runs multiple companies, including Tesla, SpaceX and xAI, is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in South Africa and has held an H-1B visa.

Tech executives have said the H-1B visa program has been crucial for hiring skilled workers. Competition to attract the world’s best talent has been intensifying since the popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT sparked a fierce race to rapidly advance artificial intelligence.

The new fee could slow California’s development and the United States’ position in the AI race by making it tougher for companies — especially startups with less money — to bring in international employees, experts said.

So far this fiscal year, more than 7,500 companies in Californiahave applied forH-1B visas and 61,841 have been approved, data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services shows.

Tech companies use the visa program to hire computer scientists and engineers because the U.S. isn’t producing enough workers with the skills needed, said Darrell West, a senior fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution.

Trump “likes to talk tough on immigration, but he fails to recognize how important immigrants are to our economy,” he said. “Companies in technology, agriculture, hotels, restaurants and construction rely heavily on immigrants, and slowing that flow is going to be devastating for companies in those areas.”

In his executive order, the Trump administration noted that some companies, such as information technology firms, have allegedly misused the program, citing mass layoffs in the tech industry and the difficulty young college graduates face in landing jobs.

“President Trump promised to put American workers first, and this commonsense action does just that by discouraging companies from spamming the system and driving down American wages,” Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement.

Economists and tech executives, though, have pointed to other factors affecting hiring, including economic uncertainty from tariffs, a shift in investments and the rise of AI tools that could complete tasks typically filled by entry-level workers.

California’s unemployment rate of 5.5% in August was higher than the U.S. unemployment rate of 4.3%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The rollout of the new changes has been “extremely chaotic,” and while the White House has tried to clear up some of the confusion, tech companies still have a lot of questions about how the fee would work, said Adam Kovacevich, chief executive of the Chamber of Progress, a center-left tech industry policy coalition.

“You never know what you’re gonna end up with the final policy in Trump world,” he said. “Somebody within the administration drives an announcement, there’s blowback, and then they end up modifying their plans.”

Tech companies have been trying to navigate a fine line in their relationship with Trump.

During Trump’s first term, high-profile tech executives, including those from Meta, Amazon, Google and Apple, spoke out about his administration’s order to restrict travel from several majority-Muslim countries. But in his second term, those same executives have cozied up to the Trump administration as they seek to influence AI policy and strike lucrative partnerships with the government.

They’ve contributed to his inauguration fund, appeared at high-profile press events, and attended a White House dinner, where Trump asked them how much they’re investing in the United States.

Microsoft declined to comment. Meta, Google and Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Changes to the H-1B program could also worsen relations with other countries, such as India, that send skilled tech workers to the U.S., experts said.

Indian nationals are the largest beneficiaries of the H-1B visa program, accounting for 71% of approved petitions, followed by those from China, at approximately 12%.

Some Indian venture capitalists and research institutes see a silver lining in this murky future. On social media, some have posted that the uncertainty surrounding H-1B visa rules could encourage talented engineers to return home to build startups, thereby fueling India’s tech sector. That would mean more competition for U.S. tech companies.

Kunal Bahl, an Indian tech investor and entrepreneur, posted “Come, build in India!” on social media. His firm, Titan Capital, launched a seed funding and mentorship program aimed at attracting students and professionals rethinking their future in the U.S. after the visa troubles.

Global tech companies might also consider opening more centers abroad where workers can work remotely and not have to move to the U.S., said Phil Fersht, the founder and chief executive of HFS Research.

“The more the U.S. makes itself a less attractive place to bring in talent,” he said, “the more it is going to harm its economy.”

META has launched a dizzying array of new hi-tech glasses – including a posh pair with a built-in screen for seeing apps.

The new specs were unveiled at today’s Meta Connect event by tech boss Mark Zuckerberg, alongside a genius AI that can create any video game that you dream up.

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Meta Connect is the company’s annual showcase for new gadgets and apps.

META RAY-BAN DISPLAY

This year, the headline product is the Meta Ray-Ban Display.

This is the company’s most advanced pair of smart specs to go on sale so far. The Sun’s Sean Keach has already tried them – read his Meta Ray-Ban Display hands-on impressions.

Regular Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses come with a built-in camera and microphone, and an AI assistant to answer questions – even about real-world objects that you’re looking at.

But the new Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses go one step further and feature a built-in screen.

This display is invisible to the outside world, so no one can see what you’re looking at.

But it can show you apps – like WhatsApp text chains, Instagram Reels, or your camera viewfinder – that float in your field of view.

You can even use it to see live captions over the face of someone speaking to you.

It’s a full-colour display but you can still see what’s going on behind the overlays.

You can even use it to follow directions that float in front of your eyes – but only for walking, not for driving.

They come with a Meta Neural Band, which goes on your wrist and detects tiny movements that let you control what you’re seeing.

So tap your fingers together to select, or roll your thumb to scroll.

The glasses start at $799 and are available from September 13 at limited stores in the US, followed by a UK release in early 2026.

They come in two colours, Black and Sand, with colour-matched Meta Neural Bands to go with them.

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META RAY-BAN GEN 2 GLASSES

The regular Meta Ray-Ban glasses have also been upgraded.

There’s now a new Gen 2 version that Meta says serves up twice the battery life of the old model.

And you’ll get 3K Ultra HD video capture too.

They’ll still feature the AI assistant, offer real-time translation, and music playback too.

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But now they’ll last eight hours with “typical use”, according to Meta.

And you can charge them up to 50% in 20 minutes, with a charging case that gets you an extra 48 hours of use.

There’s also an upcoming Conversation Focus mode that amplifies the voice of the person that you’re talking to.

So you can hear them better when you’re somewhere with a lot of ambient noise, like a busy restaurant.

There are some new styles too, given that this is effectively a fashion accessory as well as a gadget.

The new glasses go on sale today and start at $379 – with the Gen 1 version priced at $299.

META OAKLEY VANGUARD GLASSES

Meta has also teamed up with Oakley for some proper sports-friendly smart-glasses.

There’s a new product category called Oakley Meta Vanguard, which are meant for high-intensity activities.

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So think: outdoor cycling, mountain biking, trail running.

They have an “action-ready camera” built in, and a three-point-fit system plus three replaceable nose pads so you get a secure fit.

After all, you don’t want your posh specs falling off a cliff.

They have Oakley PRIZMTM Lens tech to block out sun, wind, and dust – and feature built-in speakers too, plus a five-microphone array that reduces wind noise.

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You’ll get nine hours of battery life from a pair – or six hours with continuous music playback.

And the charging case gets you an extra 36 hours of charge, with 50% refuelling for the glasses in 20 minutes.

You can also pair the glasses with Garmin and Strava to query your performance, and even overlay your exercise metrics on the video you capture.

The glasses start at £499 in the UK and $499 in the US.

META AI TO CREATE YOUR OWN GAMES

Meta also showed off a special tool that makes it extremely easy to create your own video games.

The games live inside Meta’s Horizon metaverse, which is a series of digital worlds that you can share with pals.

And now Meta has developed its AI helper to let you create massive virtual worlds, game textures, audio, skyboxes, and characters all just by typing in some words.

You can even generate custom voices for characters, give them personalities, and they’ll spring to life in seconds.

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The AI lets you create game rules and systems, spawn objects, and change what you’ve magicked up on the fly.

Importantly, you don’t need any experience of coding.

You just chat to the AI in a conversational way to edit your game, and it’ll generate automatically in just a few seconds.

Then you can invite friends to play in a custom video game that would normally have taken thousands of hours to create.

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I’VE already had a go with Mark Zuckerberg’s snazzy new smart glasses with a screen built in.

I’m out in California at Meta Connect where the company has unveiled the new Meta Ray-Ban Display smart specs – and I got an early demo with the new gadget.

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If you’re not familiar with Meta Ray-Ban gear, they’re a fairly simple concept.

They’re a pair of eyeglasses with cameras built in (for taking pics), microphones for calling, speakers for listening to music, and an AI assistant to answer your spoken questions. In fact, you can even ask about things you’re looking at – like a statue or a piece of art. Or your own wardrobe, if you want style advice.

Now Meta and Ray-Ban have created a brand new version with a built-in display, and they’ve aptly named it the Meta Ray-Ban Display.

This hi-tech gadget is the company’s first publicly available pair of smart glasses with a screen built in. And honestly, they’re pretty incredible.

Before I get into the features that I found most impressive, here’s what you actually get.

META RAY-BAN DISPLAY EXPLAINED

These glasses have all the features of a regular pair of Meta Ray-Ban specs.

But the main difference is that there’s a new full-colour hi-res display.

It has impressive clarity: I could easily read small text, see enough detail in images, and colour was bright and vibrant.

Obviously it’s nowhere near the screen experience of a smartphone, or a mixed-reality headset like the Meta Quest 3 or Apple Vision Pro.

But for an overlay on a pair of glasses, it’s pretty wild.

More importantly, no one else can see what you’re looking at. There’s no sign to the outside world that you’ve even got display running.

The display will show apps from your phone, like WhatsApp text threads, or Instagram Reels, or a Google Maps navigation window.

And you can also chat to the AI helper and see its responses in plain view – rather than simply relying on an audio reply.

To control what you’re seeing, you don a Meta Neural Band on your wrist.

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This picks up on tiny micro-movements, detects the gestures you make, and translates them as controls on the glasses.

So touching your index finger to your thumb is equivalent to a click or tap on a PC or phone.

You can go back by tapping your index finger to your thumb.

And rolling your thumb on your fist lets you scroll up and down, as well as left and right.

It’s very easy and intuitive.

And because it’s using the wristband and not cameras or sensors, you can have your hand off to the side or even behind you and the controls still work. This is pretty special.

So, what are the special tricks that blew me away?

META RAY-BAN DISPLAY HANDS-ON – MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE SPECS

First up is Live Captions.

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This will caption the words of someone you’re speaking to in real life.

So as you look at their face, you’ll see their words popping up as text in real time.

This is obviously life-changing for anyone with hearing issues.

But even if you’re just struggling to hear someone in a crowded restaurant, it’s pretty useful.

But that’s not all.

The glasses are directional, so they know where you’re looking.

I was chatting to someone from Meta while another person was nearby having their own conversation.

And my live captions focused in on the Meta person and cut out all of the ambient conversation.

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Then when I turned my head to look at the other person next to me, the captions switched to their speech instead.

This all happened in an instant. Incredible.

The next thing I was impressed by isn’t necessarily a life-changing mega-feature.

But it’s pretty neat and I think actually very useful. So it shouldn’t be overlooked.

Recipes.

Yes, you can ask Meta AI how to cook something, and it’ll conjure up the recipe.

Then it’ll hover in front of you in easy steps, and you can swipe along with the thumb gesture.

So you can follow along and cook without having a physical book or laptop there.

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And if you’re baking, you don’t actually have to touch a book or a device while your hands are covered in flour, or pizza dough, or whatever else. Very convenient.

Next is the Google Maps navigation, which is so plainly handy that it hardly needs me to explain why it’s useful.

Your exact directions will appear on the screen, telling you which way to walk.

And yes, it only works with walking. You can’t use this feature while driving. Safety first.

It’s a neat way to find your way around without having to constantly pull out your phone.

And that means it’s also a nice way to avoid falling prey to those pesky phone-snatchers too.

Video-calling is also on my list of incredible features.

Not that video-calling is anything new, of course.

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But dialling on WhatsApp and having the person’s face pop-up right in front of my eyes without blocking the outside world felt very sci-fi.

Except it’s not sci-fi, because I did it and it was seamless. It’s not quite teleporting, but it’s pretty close.

And lastly, I want to highlight how simple the controls are.

These are exceptionally easy to use, even if you have very little tech experience.

The Neural Band is very responsive, and even gives you haptic feedbacks – which feel like tiny nudges – to let you know you’ve successfully completed an interaction.

It takes literally 30 seconds to learn the moves, and then just a few minutes more to fully master them.

I had the specs on for about 20 to 30 minutes, and by the end, I was easily controlling the apps with my hands behind my back.

If that all sounds like great fun, you’ll be glad to know that the glasses go on sale in the US at select stores on September 30.

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They’ll cost you $799 for a pair, and that includes the Meta Neural Band and a case too.

If you want one in the UK, Meta says that you’ll have to wait until early 2026.

Investor sentiment on Meta Platforms (META 1.52%) stock, in addition to other big tech industry titles, was rather positive on Thursday. Many of these companies were basking in the glow of what was perceived to be Alphabet’s big victory in an antitrust case brought by the federal government.

Additionally, a prominent researcher flagged Meta as one of the sector’s stocks best positioned to take advantage of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. With this winds at its back, Meta’s stock booked a 1.6% gain on the day, almost exactly double the percentage rate increase of the S&P 500 index.

Favorable ruling

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google, Alphabet‘s core business, need not break itself up with the sale of its Chrome web browser. Although the ruling mandates that the company share some of its data with certain peers, among other minor punitive measures, it falls well short of the business split the government was seeking in the antitrust suit.

Image source: Getty Images.

That came as a relief not only to Alphabet and its many shareholders, but to other tech giants that have also felt the hot gaze of federal regulators. Meta, the owner of foundational social media site Facebook, photo-sharing incumbent Instagram, and popular messaging service WhatsApp, felt to many as if it presented a juicy target.

While there’s no guarantee that regulators will abruptly halt their scrutiny and pursuit of Big Tech, the Alphabet ruling makes this prospect significantly more unlikely. It’s no wonder investors continued to breath a large, collective, sigh of relief on this latest development.

A side play on AI

Meanwhile, one of the more closely followed tech industry researchers named Meta a top pick to take advantage of a sweeping trend.

Thursday morning, Wedbush Securities released a new analysis, broken down into categories, on what it feels are the No. 1 stocks that will benefit from the feverish adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) functionalities. Meta was named as the “Consumer AI name set to dominate the landscape.”

The stocks of Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL 3.10%) (GOOG 2.98%) and Meta Platforms (META 2.04%) shot higher in Friday trading. Although most stocks rose because the Federal Reserve strongly hinted at a September cut in interest rates, another factor was likely the announcement of Meta’s cloud deal with Google, as reported by The Information.

Considering the $10 billion size of the deal, one has to assume it is critical, particularly to Alphabet. Still, considering the state of the artificial intelligence (AI) stock, it could serve as a much-needed catalyst for the company’s investors. Here’s why.

Image source: Getty Images.

Terms of the partnership

Under the terms of the deal, Meta will pay Google $10 billion over six years. In exchange, it will receive access to Google Cloud’s storage, server, and networking services, along with other products.

Meta has previously relied on Amazon‘s Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft‘s Azure for such services. The deal does not necessarily mean it will deal less with these companies. More likely, it speaks to Meta’s insatiable demand for cloud infrastructure as it seeks to become a major player in the AI space.

Additionally, Meta and Alphabet are each other’s largest competitors in the digital advertising market. And in the first half of 2025, 98% of Meta’s revenue came from digital ads. Hence, in a sense, it is remarkable that these two would become partners in a different business.

How it helps Alphabet

However, in another sense, this is a huge step forward for Alphabet’s future. In the first half of this year, Alphabet earned 74% of its revenue from the digital ad market, down from 76% in the same period in 2024. This is also by design, as Alphabet has purchased dozens of businesses unrelated to the digital ad market in its efforts to transition into a more diversified technology enterprise.

So far, Google Cloud is the only one of these enterprises to appear in Alphabet’s financials. It accounted for 14% of Alphabet’s revenue in the first two quarters of 2025, up from 12% in the same year-ago period.

Additionally, Google Cloud generated over $49 billion in revenue over the trailing 12 months, implying the $10 billion from Meta over six years will make up a relatively small portion of Google Cloud’s business.

Nonetheless, the deal serves as a vote of confidence for Alphabet’s cloud business, one that continues to lag AWS and Azure in terms of market share.

Image source: Statista. Y-o-y = year over year.

The investor perspective is also crucial. Over the last year, Alphabet stock has outpaced the total returns of the S&P 500 by a significant but not eye-popping margin. However, it may help that Alphabet’s price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 22 is the lowest among “Magnificent Seven” stocks. Hence, the Meta deal could prompt investors to look more favorably upon that earnings multiple.

GOOGL Total Return Level data by YCharts.

Furthermore, if the Meta deal prompts other companies to do more business with Google Cloud, it could provide a boost to its market share and, by extension, Alphabet stock.

The Meta deal and Alphabet stock

Ultimately, Meta’s deal with Google Cloud will more than likely take Alphabet stock a leg higher, but investors should expect the effects to be more indirect. Indeed, the deal is remarkable in that it serves as a boost for third-place Google Cloud and is notable since the two companies are direct competitors in each other’s largest enterprises.

Although $10 billion in added business over six years is substantial, Google Cloud generated $49 billion over the last 12 months. Thus, it is a significant but not game-changing boost to the enterprise.

However, the deal may make Google Cloud more attractive to prospective customers, and the low P/E ratio could attract more investors to Alphabet. In the end, those could become the more significant benefits of the deal.

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‘I put all of my trust in social media’

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A community torn away

Duncan Edmonstone

Banned, unbanned – then banned again

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What has Meta said?

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Current and former Facebook leadership reached the agreement with shareholders only one day into the trial.

Mark Zuckerberg and current and former directors and officers of Meta Platforms have agreed to settle claims seeking $8bn for the damage they allegedly caused the company by allowing repeated violations of Facebook users’ privacy.

Zuckerberg and his counterparts reached the agreement on Thursday with shareholders who brought the lawsuit.

The parties did not disclose details of the settlement, and defence lawyers did not address the judge, Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery. McCormick adjourned the trial just as it was to enter its second day, and she congratulated the parties.

The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Sam Closic, said the agreement just came together quickly.

Billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who is a defendant in the trial and a Meta director, was scheduled to testify on Thursday.

Shareholders of Meta sued Zuckerberg, Andreessen and other former company officials, including former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, in hopes of holding them liable for billions of dollars in fines and legal costs the company paid in recent years.

The Federal Trade Commission fined Facebook $5bn in 2019 after finding that it failed to comply with a 2012 agreement with the regulator to protect users’ data.

The shareholders wanted the 11 defendants to use their personal wealth to reimburse the company. The defendants denied the allegations, which they called “extreme claims”. Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021. The company was not a defendant.

The company declined to comment. A lawyer for the defendants did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“This settlement may bring relief to the parties involved, but it’s a missed opportunity for public accountability,” said Jason Kint, the head of Digital Content Next, a trade group for content providers.

Zuckerberg was expected to take the stand on Monday and Sandberg on Wednesday. The trial was scheduled to run through the end of next week.

The case was also expected to include testimony from former Facebook board members Peter Thiel, Palantir Technologies co-founder, and Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix.

Longstanding concerns

Meta investors alleged in the lawsuit that former and current board members completely failed to oversee the company’s compliance with the 2012 FTC agreement and claim that Zuckerberg and Sandberg knowingly ran Facebook as an illegal data harvesting operation.

The case followed revelations that data from millions of Facebook users was accessed by Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct political consulting firm that worked for Donald Trump’s successful US presidential campaign in 2016. Those revelations led to the FTC fine, which was a record at the time.

On Wednesday, an expert witness for the plaintiffs testified about what he called “gaps and weaknesses” in Facebook’s privacy policies, but would not say if the company violated the 2012 agreement that Facebook reached with the FTC.

Jeffrey Zients, a former board member, testified on Wednesday that the company did not agree to the FTC fine to spare Zuckerberg legal liability, as shareholders allege.

On its website, the company has said it has invested billions of dollars into protecting user privacy since 2019.

The trial would have been a rare opportunity for Meta investors to see Zuckerberg answer probing questions under oath. In 2017, Zuckerberg was expected to testify at a trial involving a lawsuit by company investors opposed to his plan to issue a special class of Facebook stock that would have extended his control over that company. That case also settled before he took the stand.

“Facebook has successfully remade the ‘Cambridge Analytica’ scandal about a few bad actors rather than an unraveling of its entire business model of surveillance capitalism and the reciprocal, unbridled sharing of personal data,” Kint said. “That reckoning is now left unresolved.”

Meta stock was down 0.4 percent for the day as of 11am in New York (15:00 GMT) and 3.1 percent over the last five days.

An $8bn trial, pitting Meta Platforms shareholders against Mark Zuckerberg and other current and former company leaders, over claims they illegally harvested the data of Facebook users in violation of a 2012 agreement with the United States Federal Trade Commission, is under way.

The trial kicked off on Wednesday with a privacy expert for the plaintiffs, Neil Richards of Washington University Law School, who testified about Facebook’s data policies.

“Facebook’s privacy disclosures were misleading,” he told the court.

Jeffrey Zients, White House chief of staff under former President Joe Biden and a Meta director for two years starting in May 2018, is expected to take the stand later on Wednesday in the non-jury trial before Kathaleen McCormick, chief judge of the Delaware Chancery Court.

The case will feature testimony from Zuckerberg and other billionaire defendants, including former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, venture capitalist and board member Marc Andreessen, as well as former board members Peter Thiel, Palantir Technologies cofounder, and Reed Hastings, cofounder of Netflix.

A lawyer for the defendants, who have denied the allegations, declined to comment.

McCormick, the judge who rescinded Elon Musk’s $56bn Tesla pay package last year, is expected to rule on liability and damages months after the trial concludes.

Cambridge Analytica scandal

The case began in 2018, following revelations that data from millions of Facebook users was accessed by Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct political consulting firm that worked for Donald Trump’s successful US presidential campaign in 2016.

The FTC fined Facebook $5bn in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, saying the company had violated a 2012 agreement with the FTC to protect user data.

Shareholders want the defendants to reimburse Meta for the FTC fine and other legal costs, which the plaintiffs estimate total more than $8bn.

In court filings, the defendants described the allegations as “extreme” and said the evidence at trial will show Facebook hired an outside consulting firm to ensure compliance with the FTC agreement and that Facebook was a victim of Cambridge Analytica’s deceit.

Meta, which is not a defendant, declined to comment. On its website, the company has said it has invested billions of dollars into protecting user privacy since 2019.

The lawsuit is considered the first of its kind to go to trial that alleges that board members consciously failed to oversee their company. Known as a Caremark claim, such lawsuits are often described as the hardest to prove in Delaware corporate law. However, in recent years, Delaware courts have allowed a growing number of these claims to proceed.

Boeing’s current and former board members settled a case with similar claims in 2021 for $237.5m, the largest ever in an alleged breach of oversight lawsuit. The Boeing directors did not admit to wrongdoing.

The Meta trial comes four months after Delaware lawmakers overhauled the state’s corporate law to make it harder for shareholders to challenge deals struck with controlling shareholders like Zuckerberg. The bill, which did not address Caremark claims, was drafted after the state’s governor met with representatives of Meta.

Most publicly traded companies are incorporated in the state, which generates more than a quarter of the state’s budget revenue. Meta, which was reportedly considering leaving Delaware earlier this year, is still incorporated in the state.

Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital fund co-founded by Andreessen, said earlier this month that it was reincorporating in Nevada from Delaware and encouraged other companies to do the same. The company cited the uncertainty of the state’s courts and referenced the Musk pay ruling.

Andreessen is expected to testify on Thursday.

In addition to privacy claims at the heart of the Meta case, plaintiffs allege that Zuckerberg anticipated that the Cambridge Analytica scandal would send the company’s stock lower and sold his Facebook shares as a result, pocketing at least $1bn.

Defendants said evidence will show that Zuckerberg did not trade on inside information and that he used a stock-trading plan that removes his control over sales and is designed to guard against insider trading.

June 26 (UPI) — A federal judge let Meta off the hook for the use of books to train its artificial intelligence model, but it still might face legal challenges by the authors in other ways.

United States District Judge Vince Chhabria ruled Wednesday that it wasn’t unlawful for Meta to feed copyrighted material to its large language models, or “Llama,” because of the doctrine of “fair use.”

Chhabria wrote in his ruling that the use of copyrighted works by companies to train generative AI models, are using the materials in a creative fashion, which in copyright law is considered a “transformative” use as the Copyright Act says the use of copyrighted materials to teach, research, criticize, comment or report news is not infringement.

Conversely, the judge also noted that creating a new product by way of copying a protected work and then marketing that product could potentially harm the markets that carry the original materials.

“So by training generative AI models with copyrighted works, companies are creating something that often will dramatically undermine the market for those works,” Chhabria wrote.

He then questioned if companies that feed copyright-protected materials into their AI platforms without first getting permission from the copyright holders or paying to use the originals are doing something illegal.

“Although the devil is in the details, in most cases the answer will likely be yes,” wrote the judge.

Chhabria then referred to a similar case that concluded on Monday in which U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled the Anthropic artificial intelligence company didn’t violate any copyright laws when it used millions of copyrighted books to train its own AI.

“Judge Alsup focused heavily on the transformative nature of generative AI while brushing aside concerns about the harm it can inflict on the market for the works it gets trained on,” Chhabria wrote.

“No matter how transformative [Llama] training may be, it’s hard to imagine that it can be fair use to use copyrighted books to develop a tool to make billions or trillions of dollars,” Chhabria wrote. “While enabling the creation of a potentially endless stream of competing works that could significantly harm the market for those books.”

However, part of the lawsuit filed by the authors also alleges that Meta had removed copyright management information, which would violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, and this will be overseen separately.

A case management conference on how the court will proceed in regard to the DMCA is scheduled for July 11.

Published on
19/06/2025 – 17:15 GMT+2

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US tech giants Apple and Meta will not face sanctions immediately for failure to meet obligations under the EU’s digital rulebook, an EU spokesperson told Euronews.

In April, the Commission fined Apple €500 million and Meta €200 million for non-compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and gave both companies 60 days to bring their practices in line with EU rules. That grace period ends on 26 June, after which they risk periodic penalty payments.

According to the spokesperson, financial penalties will not be applied automatically but only after the Commission conducts a preliminary analysis and shares its findings with the two tech giants as part of an ongoing exchange process.

Apple was fined €500 million for preventing developers from directing users to alternative offers or content outside its platform—an action deemed contrary to DMA rules.

Meta received a €200 million fine for its “pay or consent” model, which the Commission found problematic. The model forces users to either consent to the use of their personal data for targeted advertising or pay for an ad-free subscription—limiting user choice.

In response, Meta introduced a revised version of its personalised advertising model in November 2024, which uses less personal data. The Commission is still evaluating this system while continuing its discussions with the company.

Compared to past antitrust enforcement, the fines issued in April were relatively modest. Under former EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, tech giants were subject to more substantial penalties.

In April, EU officials explained that the lower fines reflected the short duration of the violations since the DMA implementation started in 2023 and the Commission’s current focus on achieving compliance rather than punishing breaches.

US digital services have been drawn into the trade war that has been escalating between the US and the EU since mid-March. In response to US tariffs, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has threatened to impose a tax on digital advertising revenues.

Meanwhile, a report by the US Trade Representative, published in early April, labelled EU digital regulations as a barrier to US exports.

The DMA is designed to prevent dominant digital platforms from abusing their market power. It aims to open up digital ecosystems controlled by Big Tech and ensure users enjoy real freedom of choice online.

Tech giant rejects ‘false reports’ after Iranian state media urges citizens to delete messaging app.

US tech giant Meta has expressed concern that Iran may block WhatsApp after state media claimed the messaging service is being used for snooping by Israel.

“We’re concerned these false reports will be an excuse for our services to be blocked at a time when people need them the most,” Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“All of the messages you send to family and friends on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted meaning no-one except the sender and recipient has access to those messages, not even WhatsApp.”

Meta added that it does not track users’ precise location or maintain logs of who is messaging whom.

“We do not provide bulk information to any government,” the California-based tech firm said.

“For over a decade, Meta has provided consistent transparency reports that include the limited circumstances when WhatsApp information has been requested.”

Meta’s statement came after the  Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) urged citizens to deactivate or delete their WhatsApp accounts because the “Zionist regime is using citizens’ information to harm us”.

“This is extremely important because they are using the information on your phone, your location and the content you share, which is likely private but still accessible,” an IRNA host said, according to a subtitled clip shared by Iraqi media outlet Rudaw.

“Many of us have friends and relatives living nearby, and some of them could be nuclear scientists or beloved figures, don’t forget.”

End-to-end encryption makes it technically impossible for third parties, including tech companies, to access the contents of messages while they are en route from a sender to a recipient.

However, Meta and other tech platforms do collect so-called metadata, such as contacts and device information, which they can share with authorities when requested.

Iran added WhatsApp and Instagram to its list of prohibited apps in September 2022 amid protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, in custody.

Iranian authorities voted to lift the ban two months later as part of reforms to enhance internet freedom promised by President Masoud Pezeshkian.

June 13 (UPI) — Tech giant Meta is investing more than $14 billion to acquire a 49% stake in artificial intelligence firm Scale AI, the San Francisco-based company’s CEO confirmed on X.

“As you’ve probably gathered from recent news, opportunities of this magnitude often come at a cost. In this instance, that cost is my departure. It has been the absolute greatest pleasure of my life to serve as you CEO,” co-founder Alexandr Wang wrote on X earlier this week.

Scale Chief Strategy Officer will take over as chief executive, while Wang will move to Meta as part of the deal, which is reportedly worth $14.3 billion.

“As to what’s next for me, I will be leaving Scale to join Meta to work on Meta’s AI efforts along with a few other Scaliens. While it is bittersweet to depart as CEO, I would never leave Scale behind. I’ll stay on as a director on the Board, continuing to support Scale’s mission and long-term vision,” the outgoing CEO wrote on X.

Wang helped co-found Scale AI in 2016.

Meta also confirmed the transaction, which values the data labeling and model evaluation AI company at $29 billion.

“Meta has finalized our strategic partnership and investment in Scale AI. As part of this, we will deepen the work we do together producing data for AI models and Alexandr Wang will join Meta to work on our superintelligence efforts. We will share more about this effort and the great people joining this team in the coming weeks,” Meta said in a statement to TechCrunch.

Meta will not have voting rights, despite its 49% stake in Scale, NBC News reported.

Last year, Scale raised $1 billion from investors, giving the company a $13.8 billion valuation at the time.

Scale has previously provided its training data to Meta, as well as other competitors in the AI space like OpenAI, Microsoft and Google.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded the tech firm a multi-million-dollar contract for one of its flagship military programs.

The company’s shares remained unchanged on Friday, trading at $18.50.