+1.07% to $576.14 from $570.05
- Meta agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion over 10 years to resolve claims from 29 states that it designed its platforms to be addictive to children.
- The payout is the largest settlement in company history and the largest tech-industry payout on record in a single case, though far below the roughly $200 billion states had sought.
- Meta said it will take a roughly $10 billion charge this quarter for the settlement, which was not included in its prior guidance.
- The deal requires Meta to make changes to how Facebook and Instagram operate to make them safer for minors.
- Shares rose about 1.5% after the announcement as investors judged the outcome better than feared.
Sources: NPR · Fortune · Yahoo Finance · Axios · CNBC
+1.66% to $559.02 from $549.90
- Meta raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to a range of $125 billion to $145 billion, citing higher component prices and additional data-center costs.
- Separately, Meta’s social-media addiction trial resumed in Oakland, California, after a prior hearing was postponed due to a sick juror.
- A coalition of 29 state attorneys general is suing Meta over claims it designed its platforms to maximize youth engagement at the expense of children’s wellbeing; Meta has said the case could expose it to as much as $1.4 trillion in damages.
Sources: Eastern Herald · Yahoo Finance
+0.75% to $549.90 from $545.83
- Meta has quietly become one of Microsoft’s largest AI customers, spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year and consuming trillions of tokens weekly through Microsoft’s Azure cloud service.
- A 15-year-old New Jersey plaintiff, whose case was one of three bellwether trials in consolidated litigation alleging social platforms deliberately addicted young users, dropped her claims against Meta, Google and Snap ahead of an October trial, without any payment from the companies.
- TikTok, also originally a defendant in her case, had previously settled her claims separately; her attorney said she chose to dismiss the remaining claims to resume her life.
Sources: Bloomberg · Reuters
-3.54% to $568.97 from $589.85
- A trial brought by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, joined by attorneys general from dozens of other states, against Meta over alleged harm to youth mental health opened in California federal court.
- The lawsuit alleges Meta knowingly designed features to keep children engaged on Facebook and Instagram and collected data on users under 13 without parental consent, in violation of federal law.
- States are seeking damages that could, in theory, total as much as $1.4 trillion, along with court-ordered changes to how Meta operates the two platforms.
Sources: CNBC · BNN Bloomberg
-3.38% to $578.85 from $599.12
- German digital-rights group HateAid filed a criminal complaint against Meta Platforms Technologies Ireland and several eyewear retailers, alleging that Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses (Wayfarer Gen 2) violate German data-protection law by enabling covert recording.
- German prosecutors opened a preliminary review of the complaint, while the country’s network regulator said smart glasses remain legal as long as the recording function is clearly visible to others.
- Meta’s roughly $2 billion acquisition of Chinese-founded AI startup Manus has collapsed after China’s National Development and Reform Commission ordered the deal unwound; Manus said it will resume operating as an independent company.
- Manus said legal requirements will force it to delete certain user data created since Dec. 29, 2025, with deletion scheduled for Aug. 24.
Sources: Engadget · Tech Times · Bloomberg · The Next Web