Twenty-six Meta employees have sued the social media giant, alleging the California company used an artificial intelligence system to target workers on medical and family leave for layoffs.
The lawsuit, filed this week in federal court in California, accuses Meta of using AI that includes performance rankings and other metrics that don’t exclude workers on leave or people with disabilities.
“As a result, not only were employees who took protected leave unfairly singled out for termination based on scoring that did not take protected leave into account, but employees who exercised their legal rights to these leaves were effectively penalized,” the lawsuit said.
Meta laid off nearly 8,000 employees, about 10% of its global workforce, in May as it looked to offset the costs of its AI investments. The company violated federal and state laws protecting pregnant, disabled and vacation workers by allegedly targeting certain employees, according to the complaint.
Mr Mehta denied the allegations.
“These claims are unsubstantiated and not based in fact,” a Mehta spokesperson said in a statement. “Employee management and organizational decisions have been made by humans, not AI.”
The novel argument is the latest example of new legal questions facing courts as concerns about artificial intelligence grow.
According to the more than 70-page lawsuit, Meta uses AI to monitor employee keystrokes and activities, sparking backlash from employees. According to the complaint, the company required employees to train a personal AI agent called a “second brain.”
“At least some senior executives trained Meta’s second brain agents before going on leave, including maternity leave, to help them perform better during their time off,” the complaint states.
The employees, who remain anonymous in the lawsuit, are current and former Meta employees from California, New York, Washington and other states.
One California employee, who was a manager at Meta for about four years and received high performance reviews, took approved leave in other years for bereavement, medical conditions, and pregnancy. According to the complaint, she submitted her intention to take maternity leave in April and learned a few weeks later that she would be fired.
Other California Meta employees who were fired included those with disabilities who were on parental or medical leave, according to the complaint.
Some workers on sick leave claim they received poor performance reviews before losing their jobs.
The harm allegedly inflicted on the employees “cannot be undone by monetary damages alone,” the lawsuit states.
“Meth is taking away the entire purpose of protected leave, which is to protect medical treatment, family care, and time away from work to do so,” the lawsuit said.
The workers are seeking a court order barring Meta from firing them or changing their pay or benefits as a result of resolving their legal claims, and are awaiting an “independent audit of the algorithm-assisted selection process,” according to the complaint.
Other tech companies, including Amazon, Oracle and Microsoft, have also implemented mass layoffs this year.
U.S. tech employers announced 139,156 layoffs from January to June, an 83% increase compared to the same period in 2025, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a global outplacement and executive coaching firm.
