Trump Media discussed premium paid feed for fastest access to Truth Social posts

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s social media company has discussed charging Wall Street traders and investment firms up to $100,000 a month for the quickest access to posts from his Truth Social platform, according to people familiar with the matter.

Those people said Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, also floated a discounted option of $60,000 per month for firms willing to commit to a three-year contract. The discussions were described as confidential, and the sources requested anonymity.

On Thursday, TMTG announced a paid licensed data product called Truth API, saying it would give banks and trading firms the fastest access to posts from the 10 most influential Truth Social accounts. The company did not disclose pricing when unveiling the product.

The new offering marks the company’s first move into data licensing and opens a potential new source of income. TMTG said the service will offer continuous monitoring of influential posts and an archive going back to 2022. It also said customers have already signed up ahead of the August 1 launch, though it did not identify them.

Concerns over market impact and ethics

Trump’s posts on social media have at times moved financial markets. On April 9, 2025, Wall Street’s main indexes swung sharply upward after he wrote on Truth Social that he would suspend many of his new tariffs for 90 days.

The sources said access to the Truth API would be particularly important for high-frequency trading firms, where even a lead measured in milliseconds can produce gains worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on large trades.

The proposal drew criticism from Democratic lawmakers and ethics advocates. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said the arrangement would financially help the Trump family and “make Wall Street traders rich.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, called it “an egregious scheme to profit off the presidency and enrich Wall Street while doing nothing to help Americans.”

Donald Sherman, president of the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the Truth API setup would be “wildly unethical” because the president could benefit from payments tied to faster access to his posts. He added that, based on publicly available information, it was difficult to determine whether the arrangement would be illegal.

Sherman said constitutional emoluments restrictions would not apply in this case, noting that they are meant to prevent corruption by barring federal officials from taking gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval, and by preventing the president from receiving gifts from states. He also said federal rules against trading on material non-public information would not apply if earlier access were provided to potentially hundreds or thousands of people.

He said “I don't think Congress or any regulatory body ever contemplated that a president or a market-mover would engage in this kind of paying-for-access type arrangement”

Company structure and business context

Some of Truth Social’s most-followed accounts belong to Trump and allies close to him, including Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump, Dan Bongino and Sean Hannity.

Regulatory filings show the Donald J Trump Revocable Trust holds about 114.75 million shares, or roughly 41% of TMTG’s outstanding stock. The trust is overseen by Trump’s children and manages his investments, while the White House has said his business empire is under their supervision. However, Trump remains the beneficiary of income flowing into the trust.

Critics have questioned whether Trump and his family have tried to increase their wealth through policies announced by his administration. In his latest financial disclosures, Trump reported more than $1.4 billion in income last year from the family’s cryptocurrency ventures after his digital asset earnings benefited from policies he had announced.

The White House referred questions about Wyden’s criticism to TMTG. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Shares in TMTG, down roughly 27% this year, closed nearly unchanged at $9.66 on Friday, leaving the company with a market value of about $2.7 billion.