Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seen at the U.S. Capitol after a meeting in the office of Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., March 26, 2026.
Tom Williams | CQ Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
A coalition of current and former members Meta Employees have sued the social media giant, claiming the company used artificial intelligence in a discriminatory manner in its latest round of layoffs.
In a lawsuit filed Monday, the plaintiffs allege that Meta violated various protected leave and discrimination laws, including those related to pregnancy and disability, and said they plan to pursue their claims individually in arbitration.
Attorneys representing the 26 unnamed workers said in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. Northern District Court of California that the plaintiffs were among the 10% of the workforce that Meta cut in the company’s round of layoffs in May.
The plaintiffs allege that Meta’s “constellation of internal artificial intelligence systems” did not take authorized absences into account when deciding which employees should be fired.
“These tools rely on inputs – performance ratings, calibration values, productivity and output metrics, ‘AI-native’ ratings, and AI token consumption – that by design cannot be collected from an employee who is on protected medical or family leave or whose performance is limited by a disability,” the lawyers wrote in the filing.
The lawsuit accuses Meta of using metrics such as token consumption, which has become a proxy for general AI usage, in a way that targets specific employees.
Courthouse News Service previously reported on the lawsuit.
A Meta spokesperson told CNBC in an email that the “claims are baseless and not based on facts.”
“Human resource management and organizational decisions were and are made by humans, not AI,” the Meta spokesperson said in the statement.
The lawsuit underscores increasing concerns about the impact of AI on jobs and people with disabilities in the workforce.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to issue an “interim injunction to maintain the status quo of their employment” at Meta “until an independent review of the algorithmically supported selection process is carried out and the merits of their claims are resolved in arbitration.”
The lawsuit comes nearly a month after a federal judge in California ruled against a technology company working day in a separate employee-related lawsuit involving the use of AI in hiring decisions. In that case, the judge ruled that Workday faces claims stemming from the company’s use of AI-powered job screening services that allegedly violated state and federal employee discrimination laws.
Workday denied the allegations, saying in a statement at the time that its AI recruiting software does not make hiring decisions “in California or elsewhere.”
“Our technology only considers professional qualifications, not protected characteristics such as race, age or disability,” Workday said in the statement. “We thoroughly test our products as part of our Responsible AI program to ensure our tools do not harm protected groups.”
REGARD: Meta recovery should continue into July, says 3Fourteen’s Warren Pies
Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/14/meta-lawsuit-layoffs-ai.html
