NORTHERN CALIFORNIA — U.S. District Judge Laurel Beeler in Northern California dismissed former WhatsApp security chief Attaullah Baig's whistleblower lawsuit against Meta on March 19, 2026, for lack of sufficient facts. The judge ruled that Baig's allegations did not show retaliation by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for raising security concerns.

In his lawsuit, Baig alleged that Meta fired him as part of performance-based layoffs for raising concerns about security holes in WhatsApp. He alleged that his firing violated SEC rules protecting whistleblowers from termination. In his lawsuit, Baig alleged that hackers took over more than 100,000 WhatsApp accounts per day and that thousands of employees had access to sensitive user data such as locations and profile photos.

In his lawsuit, Baig said that Meta's focus on performance reviews led employees to focus on optimizing their review scores and padding numbers rather than addressing security threats. He said he filed an internal form at Meta about serious cybersecurity issues but did not include details of its contents in the lawsuit.

The judge declined to consider a 90-page filing Baig made to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration as part of the grounds for dismissal. The judge's ruling said that Baig had sufficient pleadings regarding Nitin Gupta, Meta's head of engineering at WhatsApp. "Thus, if the plaintiff's claim for retaliation were not dismissed, the individual claim against Gupta would survive," Judge Beeler wrote. Baig alleged that Gupta denied him stock grants and sidelined his team in retaliation for raising security concerns.

"This ruling reaffirms what we've said all along: These claims have no merit," said Andy Stone, spokesman for Meta. "We're proud of our strong record of protecting people's privacy and security, and will continue building on it."

Psst.org plans to refile the case and said the dismissal was based on narrow technical grounds. "Mr. Baig discovered that billions of WhatsApp users' data was at risk. He reported it internally, escalated to Mark Zuckerberg, and went to federal regulators. He was fired anyway," said Jennifer Gibson, cofounder and executive director of Psst.org. "He is not done fighting. The judge dismissed on technical pleading grounds, not merit, and we look forward to addressing those deficiencies to ensure Meta has to finally engage with the substance of Mr. Baig's allegations."