Cambridge Analytica is shutting down

Technically speaking, Cambridge Analytica, the scandal-ridden data analytics company that harvested the user data of up to 87 million Facebook users, is closing up shop, effective immediately.

The company stands accused of taking Facebook data without users’ permission and using it to create what it called “psychographic profiles” of voters, who were then targeted with Trump campaign ads. As the scandal erupted, video of the company’s CEO, Alexander Nix, bragging about winning the election for Trump was leaked. Nix was put on leave in March, and now the whole company is shutting down — at least on paper.

Though the company is now in bankruptcy, the right-wing Mercer family, which backed it, is reportedly plowing ahead in the data business under a new company called Emerdata, which will operate out of the U.K. An executive told Channel 4 News that Emerdata was founded in 2017 to bring Cambridge Analytica and its British affiliate, SCL Group, together under one corporate banner. Nix and Mercer’s daughters Rebekah and Jennifer, are reportedly involved.

Still, the end of Cambridge Analytica was not without drama. In a press release dripping with condescension announcing the company’s “insolvency,” executives maintained that Cambridge Analytica did nothing wrong.

“Over the past several months, Cambridge Analytica has been the subject of numerous unfounded accusations and, despite the Company’s efforts to correct the record, has been vilified for activities that are not only legal but also widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising in both the political and commercial arenas,” the company said.

“The siege of media coverage has driven away virtually all of the Company’s customers and suppliers.”

Wednesday marked the last day at work for all Cambridge Analytica employees, and they’ve already been asked to turn over their laptops, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The analytics company — backed to the tune of $15 million by conservative megadonor Robert Mercer, who helped found the company alongside former Trump adviser Steve Bannon — claimed privately to have won Donald Trump the 2016 presidential election using the information it harvested from Facebook. But their celebrations came to a crashing halt after a 28-year-old leaker, Chris Wylie, blew the whistle on the company after he learned data had been stolen from 50 million Facebook users. (Facebook later revealed that up to 87 million user profiles could have been compromised.)

“When you think about the fact that Donald Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million votes but won the Electoral College vote, that's down to the data and the research," Nix said in the secretly taped video that ultimately cost him his job.

Though there’s no doubt that the company was well-funded and braggadocious about their role in the election, experts have questioned how effective even well-targeted political advertising is on Facebook. And despite Nix’s bragging, the Trump campaign spent relatively little on the his company’s tools. Of the $325 million Trump spent running for president, only $5.9 million went to Cambridge Analytica.