Mark Zuckerberg: news, timeline and key numbers

The story so far begins in October 2026, when senior Justice Department leaders reportedly directed career prosecutors to halt a criminal grand jury investigation into Meta Platforms. The inquiry concerned the facilitation of illicit pharmaceutical sales, according to people familiar with the matter. Trump-appointed officials intervened shortly after prosecutors in the Western District of Virginia issued subpoenas summoning company executives to testify. That order has since been rescinded.

Later in the month, a separate dispute emerged. Meta was ordered to identify the executives and other decision-makers who authorized downloading pirated books from shadow libraries such as Anna's Archive and LibGen to help train its AI models, according to TorrentFreak, as reported by Ars Technica. The order could move the cases from low-level employees to company leadership.

Days after that, a New Mexico state court ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in civil penalties in a consumer deception case that grew out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, according to CNBC and Bloomberg Law. The ruling adds to the company's legal costs over its data practices and their effect on users.

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