Meta just disclosed it faces $1.4 trillion in potential penalties in the teen mental health case brought by state attorneys general. That number is nearly equal to Meta's entire market cap. Twenty-nine states are suing Meta for violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting data from underage users without parental consent. They allege Facebook and Instagram were intentionally designed to be addictive to children, fueling anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide. Four of those states are also targeting Meta for misleading the public about safety risks. The $1.4 trillion figure comes from how California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey have proposed penalties should be calculated if they win. Meta's lawyers called it "outlandish" and said a sanction of that size "has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement." This is not happening in a vacuum. Meta already lost two major cases this year. A California court found it liable for fueling social media addiction. A New Mexico jury found it failed to protect kids from online predators. The company now faces more than 2,400 pending lawsuits from school districts, parents, and governments in what critics call a "Big Tobacco moment" for social media. The trial is set for August 18 in Oakland. The actual penalty will almost certainly be far less than $1.4 trillion. But the scale of the legal exposure tells you how regulators view what happened. This is a company accused of knowingly designing products that harmed an entire generation of children for profit, and 29 states are lined up to make the case.