Meta accused of using AI to pick employees with medical conditions for layoffs
Twenty-six Meta employees have filed a lawsuit against the social media giant over allegations that the California company used artificial intelligence systems to target employees on medical or family leave for layoffs.
The lawsuit, filed this week in a federal court in California, accuses Meta of using artificial intelligence that includes performance rankings and other metrics that do not exclude furloughed employees or people with disabilities.
“As a result, employees who took protected leave were disproportionately singled out for termination based on scoring that not only took into account their protected leave, but also penalized employees for exercising their legal rights regarding those leaves,” the lawsuit said.
Meta laid off nearly 8,000 employees, or roughly 10% of its global workforce, in May as the company tried to offset the costs of its AI investments. According to the lawsuit, the company violated federal and state laws protecting pregnant, disabled or furloughed employees by allegedly targeting specific employees.
Meta denied the allegations.
“These allegations have no basis and are not based on facts,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by humans, not artificial intelligence.”
The new allegations are the latest example of how courts are facing new legal questions as concerns about artificial intelligence grow.
According to the more than 70-page lawsuit, Meta used artificial intelligence to monitor an employee’s keystrokes and activities, prompting employee backlash. The lawsuit stated that the company also asked its employees to train a personal artificial intelligence agent called a “second brain.”
“At least some senior leaders trained second-brain agents before taking leave, including maternity leave, so that Meta could continue to leverage their output during the employee’s absence,” the lawsuit said.
The workers not named in the lawsuit are current and former Meta employees from California, New York, Washington and other states.
A California worker who was a manager at Meta for nearly four years received high performance reviews but took approved leave in separate years due to death, ill health and pregnancy. According to the lawsuit, she announced her intention to take maternity leave in April and learned weeks later that she would be laid off.
The lawsuit stated that other California Meta employees who were laid off included disabled people who were on paternity leave and medical leave.
Some workers on medical leave claim they received lower performance reviews before losing their jobs.
The lawsuit stated that the damage allegedly caused to employees “cannot be compensated by monetary compensation alone.”
“The meta defeats the entire purpose of protected leave – to recover, care for family, and have protected time away from work to do so,” the lawsuit said.
The workers are seeking a court order that would prevent Meta from firing them and altering their compensation and benefits while their legal claims are resolved and are seeking “an independent audit of the algorithmically powered selection process,” according to the lawsuit.
Other tech companies, including Amazon, Oracle and Microsoft, are carrying out mass layoffs this year.
From January to June, U.S. tech employers announced 139,156 layoffs, an 83% increase over the same period in 2025, according to global employment and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
