09:01 AM EDT, 07/16/2025 (MT Newswires) -- (Updates with Meta's response in the last paragraph)

Meta Platforms ( META ) shareholders and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg are set to face off beginning Wednesday in an $8 billion trial over alleged illegal harvesting of Facebook user data, multiple news outlets reported.

Jeffrey Zients, a Meta director for two years starting in May 2018 and White House chief of staff during the Biden administration, is expected to be one of the first witnesses to take the stand, according to Reuters.

Shareholders want Zuckerberg and other company executives to reimburse Meta for the fine imposed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other legal costs after Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct political consulting firm, accessed the data of millions of Facebook users in 2018 in violation of a 2012 user data protection agreement, the reports said.

Meta did not provide a comment on the case to MT Newswires, as they are not a named party in the lawsuit.