Mark Zuckerberg Sues Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta
Mark S. Zuckerberg, an Indiana lawyer, filed a lawsuit against Meta this week, alleging that the company breached its contract by repeatedly disabling his personal and commercial accounts while continuing to collect payments for advertisements promoting his law firm. The lawsuit details that Meta disabled Zuckerberg’s accounts nine times over the past eight years—five instances involving his commercial account and four involving his personal page. According to the complaint, each time Meta disabled his Facebook account, the company accused Zuckerberg of “impersonating a celebrity” and failing to use an “authentic name.”
The lawsuit highlights that Meta’s actions have placed Zuckerberg at a significant competitive disadvantage. Zuckerberg told Fortune that Meta sometimes took four to six months to restore his account, all while retaining the $11,000 he spent on advertising. The complaint notes that Meta required him to submit scans of his driver’s license and credit card, as well as videos showing his face, to verify his identity each time his account was disabled. “All my competitors are using the platform to try and get clients, and I paid [Meta] money to try and get clients, and then they shut me off again,” Zuckerberg said. “It’s just not fair, and it’s not right.”
Meta, which generated $164.50 billion in revenue in 2024, primarily from advertising, has faced criticism for its handling of advertising revenue from accounts it later removes. A 2022 Wired report revealed that between July 2018 and April 2022, Meta earned over $30 million in advertising revenue from public relations or advertising networks later banned for “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” such as spreading misinformation or using false identities. A Meta spokesperson told Wired that the company does not refund ad payments when a network is removed from its platform.
Zuckerberg’s lawsuit asserts that “Meta has a duty to exercise reasonable care to ensure Plaintiff is able to obtain the full benefit for advertising services for which it paid.” The lawyer’s challenges extend beyond his professional life, as his shared name with Meta CEO Mark E. Zuckerberg has caused persistent confusion. His personal website explains that he receives over 100 friend requests from Facebook users, along with packages and letters containing suggestions for “improving Facebook,” tech support inquiries, and even death threats and harassment. To cope, Zuckerberg turns off his phone each night to avoid the barrage of notifications from people mistaking him for the tech billionaire.
The confusion over his identity has led to other real-world consequences. In 2020, the state of Washington mistakenly sued Zuckerberg, believing he was the Meta CEO, alleging he had endangered an adult in need of protective services. Despite these challenges, Zuckerberg maintains a lighthearted perspective on his website, stating, “I don’t wish Mark E. Zuckerberg any ill will at all. I hope the best for him, but let me tell you this: I will rule the search for ‘Mark Zuckerberg bankruptcy’.”
Meta did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment on the lawsuit but informed Axios that “We have reinstated Mark Zuckerberg’s account, after finding it had been disabled in error.”
