Meta’s Future Value and the Social Media Verdict

Talk about bad timing. Meta Platforms made a big splash on Tuesday night by disclosing new stock grants for senior executives that fully pay out only if the company’s market capitalization rises above $9.4 trillion by 2031, from $1.5 trillion now. Hours later, on Wednesday, we scooped the news that Meta was laying off hundreds of people. And hours after that, a jury in Los Angeles found Meta and Google’s YouTube liable for negligence in a lawsuit about the addictive qualities of social media.

It’s not crazy to think the court decision might dampen Meta’s future stock value. As my colleague Erin Woo wrote on the eve of the trial in late January, the case was the first of thousands of claims brought by families who say the companies built products designed to be addictive and harmful to young people’s mental health. This verdict was expected to set a precedent for resolution of all the cases in what could be a global settlement.