Twenty-six current and former Meta employees sued the social media giant Monday, alleging that the company used artificial intelligence to conduct layoffs and discriminated against some workers.
The lawsuit, filed in Oakland, California federal court, accuses Meta of using AI-powered software that disproportionately targeted people with disabilities or who took medical leave when selecting workers for mass layoffs.
Attorneys representing the 26 unnamed workers said in a legal complaint filed in the United States Northern District Court of California that the plaintiffs were among the 10% of Meta's workforce cut in the company's May layoff round.
Meta laid off 10% of its global workforce in May, or nearly 8,000 people , part of a broader restructuring to fund the company's aggressive push into artificial intelligence.
Did AI Really Make the Layoff Decisions?
According to the complaint, Meta used a number of internal AI-assisted systems to score and rank employees on a termination list, including "Metamate," a large language model assistant; an employee-trained "second brain" that tracked workers' communications and documents; and a productivity score drawn from scanning keystrokes, screen content, emails and browser history.
The 71-page complaint reads: "Meta did not assemble the termination list through the considered judgment of managers who knew the work." Instead, the 26 workers allege the company used AI systems "to score, rank and select employees for inclusion on the list".
The lawyers wrote in the filing that the AI tools "draw on inputs—performance ratings, calibration scores, productivity and output metrics, 'AI-native' ratings, and AI-token consumption—that, by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability."
Meta's Model Capability Initiative (MCI), launched in April 2026, captured keystrokes, mouse movements, click locations, and screen content from US employees' work laptops to train internal AI models.
Reuters reported that Meta installed tracking software on U.S. employees' work computers that captures mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes, along with some screenshots to feed the data into its AI training pipeline.
Meta flatly denied the allegations. "Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC.
What Laws Does the Lawsuit Claim Meta Violated?
Plaintiffs allege that Meta violated various protected-leave laws and discrimination acts related to pregnancies and disabilities, among others.
The suit claims violations of three major federal statutes: the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.
Key to the lawsuit's argument, each of the plaintiffs "took, requested, or was approved to take statutorily protected leave; attempted to take protected leave and suffered interference; or requested or received a reasonable accommodation for a disability," within 24 months of being laid off. Laws like the Family and Medical Leave Act expressly prohibit companies from considering employees taking protected leave as part of their employment decisions.
One of the plaintiffs is a scientist who was on approved pre-birth pregnancy leave – she was notified of her lay-off just two days before she gave birth.
The 26 plaintiffs include engineers, managers, researchers, and designers, as well as a director who had direct access to the AI platform.
The plaintiffs, who were notified in May that their jobs would be eliminated starting on July 22, are seeking a preliminary ruling from the court blocking Meta from completing the layoffs while they pursue their claims in private arbitration.
