Meta faces a $1.4 trillion threat that could mean ‘turning in the keys and walking away’—but the stakes of the case reach across tech

It’s no secret Meta is one of the wealthiest companies in the world.

Last year, it brought in nearly $201 billion in revenue , and at the end of this June, it was sitting on more than $90 billion in cash and marketable securities.

Now, a federal trial underway in Oakland, Calif., is testing what it would actually take to financially hurt a company that big.

California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey have accused Meta of misleading the public about the risks its platforms pose to young users and of designing features on Instagram and Facebook that keep children and teenagers hooked.

The four states are going first in a case brought by a coalition of 29 state attorneys general that sued the company in 2023.

Meta is already fighting child-safety lawsuits across the country, but this case carries an added threat because of who is bringing it.

State attorneys general can bring claims that private plaintiffs cannot, including claims under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA.

They can also seek remedies to address alleged harms affecting potentially millions of people.

“The stakes might be higher in this case because the damages awards are going to measure potentially many millions of people’s harms,” Eric Goldman, co-director of Santa Clara University School of Law’s High Tech Law Institute, told Fortune .

“And there might be extra remedies because of the specific claims that the attorney general can bring.” That helps explain the almost incomprehensible number hanging over the trial: $1.4 trillion.

That’s how high Meta says potential penalties could climb under the states’ theory of the case, putting the theoretical maximum in the neighborhood of the value of the company itself .

“It’s a number that boggles the mind, frankly,” Goldman said.

At its most extreme, Goldman said, the potential damages Meta has described could effectively transfer the value held by Meta’s stockholders to the public.

“Essentially, it’s asking Meta to turn in the keys and walk away,” he said.