Meta faced a lawsuit in July 2026 from 26 employees who claimed the company used AI-powered systems to disproportionately target workers on medical, parental, or family leave for layoffs [1, 2, 3, 4]. The suit was filed in Oakland federal court and accused Meta of violating federal and state laws including the Family and Medical Leave Act and Americans with Disabilities Act [5, 6, 7, 8].
Meta announced in May 2026 its plan to cut about 10% of its global workforce, roughly 8,000 employees, as part of cost reductions including some of those named in the suit [1, 2, 3, 4]. The plaintiffs represent six states plus the District of Columbia, with half having taken legally protected leaves such as maternity or parental leave [1, 5]. Eight of the plaintiffs were women on pregnancy or maternity leave, and four were men on parental leave [5, 6].
The lawsuit alleges Meta used AI tools like a language model assistant named "Metamate," personalized "second brain" AI agents, and productivity scores derived from keystrokes, emails, browser history, and AI token usage to rank workers for layoffs [2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. These systems did not account for legally protected leaves or disabilities, reducing AI usage metrics and performance scores for affected employees and placing them at a disadvantage [1, 2, 3, 4].
Plaintiffs seek a preliminary injunction to block layoffs during arbitration and demand an independent audit of Meta's AI for bias [2, 4, 5]. Meta denied the allegations, stating workforce management decisions were made by people, not AI. A Meta spokesperson said, "Workforce management and organisational decisions were and are made by people, not AI," and spokesperson Tracy Clayton added, "These claims lack merit and are not based on facts" [1, 9].
Employees named in the lawsuit began being terminated from July 22 as part of the layoff process announced earlier [2, 4, 5]. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he does not expect more company-wide layoffs in 2026 [2, 4].
