Trump Sued Over $100,000-a-Month Early Access to His Truth Social Posts
A news nonprofit and a press freedom group say the president's new paid feed lets him profit from market-moving government announcements before the public sees them.
President Donald Trump was sued Wednesday over a new service that sells paying customers early access to his posts on Truth Social, some of which move financial markets within seconds of going live.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, was brought by The Intercept, a news organization, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit press advocacy group. It targets Truth API, a feed launched August 1 by Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social. The service charges up to $100,000 a month for faster delivery of posts from the platform's 10 most followed accounts, including Trump's own, according to the complaint.
"This scheme is profoundly corrupt," the lawsuit says. "The President stands to gain financially by giving 'market-moving' government information to those who are willing and able to pay his personal company."
A First Amendment Fight Over Speed
The suit argues that Truth API violates the First and Fifth Amendments by giving paying customers preferential access to what it calls official government announcements. It notes that Trump has posted between 9,000 and 11,000 times on Truth Social since returning to office in January 2025, often disclosing tariff decisions, military actions, and personnel moves with no separate White House statement to follow. The complaint asks a judge to bar Trump and his aides from posting government information exclusively on Truth Social as long as the paid feed exists.
"A president selling priority access to news he himself generates for the benefit of a private company he controls is so blatantly corrupt and unconstitutional that it would have been hard to even fathom just a few years ago," said Seth Stern, the Freedom of the Press Foundation's chief of advocacy.
Ben Muessig, The Intercept's editor-in-chief, said in a statement that Trump is "trying to enrich himself by privatizing government information that he has no right to sell."
Trump Media Defends the Business
Trump Media interim chief executive Kevin McGurn told investors on an earnings call Monday that the company has signed more than 10 customers for Truth API, mostly high-frequency trading firms paying between $60,000 and $100,000 a month, and that it is in talks with cloud computing firms, large news organizations, and artificial intelligence companies about expanding the service.
A Trump Media spokesperson said other platforms already redistribute Trump's posts through paid subscription feeds and accused the plaintiffs of trying to "wrongfully weaponize the courts" against the president. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment from several news outlets.
Trump is Trump Media's largest shareholder, holding a stake of roughly $950 million through a revocable trust, according to Reuters data cited by Channel NewsAsia. His son, Donald Trump Jr., oversees the trust as trustee.
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