Meta Platforms shares are trading around $592–597 on March 25, having closed at $592.92 on March 24.
That puts the stock down roughly 25% from its all-time high of $796.25, hit on August 15, 2025, and down about 7% since the start of the year.
On March 25 the stock is moving in a tight range between $593 and $604, essentially flat on the day, but the broader picture over the past several months is a sustained pullback from extraordinary highs, driven by a convergence of legal, regulatory, and spending pressures that all landed at once.
Understanding each of them separately matters more than treating this as a single story.
The $375 Million Verdict That Landed Tuesday
The most immediate catalyst is a jury verdict delivered March 24 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
A jury found Meta liable on all counts in a six-week trial brought by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, ruling that the company violated state consumer protection law by misleading users about the safety of its platforms and enabling child sexual exploitation on Facebook and Instagram.
The jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million in damages, the maximum permitted under state law at $5,000 per violation, with thousands of violations counted separately.
Torrez called it “a historic victory for every child and family who has paid the price for Meta’s choice to put profits over kids’ safety.”
Meta said in a statement it “respectfully disagrees with the verdict and will appeal.”
A second phase of proceedings is scheduled for May 4, when a judge will separately determine whether Meta created a public nuisance and should be required to fund public programs to address the alleged harms, potentially adding penalties beyond the $375 million.
The $375 million figure itself is not large relative to Meta’s revenue. What rattles investors is what it signals.
This is the first time a U.S. state has prevailed at trial against Meta over child safety claims. It opens the door.
More than 40 state attorneys general have filed similar lawsuits against the company, and a separate jury in Los Angeles is currently deliberating a social media addiction case against Meta and YouTube that is considered a bellwether for thousands of similar suits.
If that California case goes against Meta, the exposure becomes material very quickly.
The Capex Problem
The legal pressure exists on top of a spending story that has been unnerving investors for months.
When Meta reported Q4 2025 earnings on January 28, the numbers were strong across the board, revenue of $59.9 billion for the quarter, up 24% year over year, beating the $58.6 billion consensus.
Earnings per share came in at $8.88 against a $8.21 estimate. Full-year 2025 revenue crossed $200 billion for the first time. The stock surged 10% after hours that night.
Then came the guidance.
Meta told investors it expects 2026 capital expenditures of $115 billion to $135 billion. The midpoint of that range, $125 billion, is nearly double what it spent in 2025, which was itself a record.
It would make Meta the largest single-year spender on technology infrastructure in corporate history.
Total 2026 expenses are guided between $162 billion and $169 billion, up from $117.7 billion in 2025. Q4 operating margin was already down to 41% from 48% a year earlier as costs accelerated.
Zuckerberg described the spending in a single phrase: “advancing personal superintelligence for people around the world in 2026.”
The money is going into AI data centers, Nvidia chips, and the infrastructure to train and run the models Meta is building through its Meta Superintelligence Labs division.
The bet is that owning that capacity will generate enormous returns. The concern is that it may not, or not on any timeline the market can price.
The Antitrust Overhang
Adding to the regulatory pressure, the FTC filed a formal appeal on January 20, 2026, seeking to revive its antitrust case against Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
A federal judge ruled in Meta’s favor in November 2025, finding the FTC had not proven Meta was a current social-networking monopoly, a major win that removed the immediate threat of a forced breakup.
But the FTC’s appeal keeps that risk alive. A forced divestiture of Instagram or WhatsApp would be structurally devastating for Meta’s advertising business, which generated $58.1 billion in Q4 alone.
In Europe, the Digital Markets Act continues to pressure Meta’s ad targeting model.
The European Commission has pushed back on Meta’s Less Personalized Ads offering, and Meta has warned investors it cannot rule out further modifications that would materially hurt European ad revenue. That market is not small.
What’s The Bigger Picture For Meta?
None of the legal or regulatory developments have changed the underlying advertising machine. Meta has 3.58 billion daily active users across its family of apps.
Ad impressions grew 18% year over year in Q4 2025. The average price per ad rose 6%. Q1 2026 revenue guidance of $53.5 to $56.5 billion implies roughly 30% year-over-year growth.
Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses tripled in sales last year. The Gemini competitor, Meta AI, is being deployed across all its platforms.
The stock is currently trading at approximately 25 times earnings. Its 52-week range runs from $479.80 to $796.25, an extraordinary spread that reflects a company simultaneously posting record revenues and absorbing record-level costs.
An investor who bought five years ago has still seen substantial gains despite the current pullback.
The near-term pressure is real. The child safety verdict introduces legal risk that is larger in precedent than in dollar amount.
The capex guidance demands proof of return that is not yet visible in the numbers. The FTC appeal keeps a structural risk alive that the market had largely priced out.
What has not changed is the advertising business generating cash at a scale that almost no company in history has matched.
