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Lawsuit against Trump alleges early access sale to his Truth Social posts is 'profoundly corrupt'

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Natalie Musumeci

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Donald Trump

President Donald Trump is facing a new lawsuit.

Aaron Schwartz / AFP

President Donald Trump was sued Wednesday over a new service for his social media platform, Truth Social, that charges subscribers up to $100,000 a month for early access to his posts and those of other prominent users.

The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, alleges that the sale of faster access to what the interim CEO of Truth Social's parent, Trump Media, has called "market-moving" posts is "profoundly corrupt" and illegal.

"President Donald Trump is charging $100,000 per month for advance access to his official government announcements on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns," the lawsuit says, adding, "This scheme is extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional, and Plaintiffs bring this case to stop it."

The lawsuit, brought by The Intercept Media nonprofit news organization and the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation, says that Trump "stands to gain financially by giving 'market-moving' government information to those who are willing and able to pay his personal company."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit by Business Insider.

Last month, Trump Media announced it would launch a service called Truth API, describing it as a business-to-business data feed that would provide customers with faster access to posts from the highest-ranking Truth Social accounts, including Trump, who has 13 million followers.

In Trump Media's first earnings call on Monday, interim CEO Kevin McGurn said that since the announcement, the company has signed more than 10 customers, "primarily high-frequency trading firms," at rates ranging from $60,000 to $100,000 to a month.

"We're also in active conversations with hyperscalers, some of the largest news organizations, and developers of large language models, and we are evaluating opportunities in the prediction market space for data licensing," McGurn said.

Trump API, the interim CEO explained, "provides a machine-readable feed of publicly available Truth Social posts from the platform's top accounts in milliseconds."

Customers will get "published and publicly available posts fractionally faster," he said.

The lawsuit against Trump slams the service as an "illegal scheme" that violates the First and Fifth Amendments.

"There is no legitimate interest, let alone a significant one, in permitting President Trump to profit from selling government information," the lawsuit says.

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Natalie Musumeci

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Natalie is a senior reporter on Business Insider's Business News team.She was previously on BI's Legal Affairs team where she covered major cases out of state and federal court, as well as bankruptcy. Her coverage often focused on stories at the intersection of law, business, politics and technology. Natalie has covered Donald Trump’s criminal and civil cases, the wave of lawsuits against the second Trump administration, the indictment and criminal trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and the legal battles facing Elon Musk and his companies. Natalie came to Business Insider in June 2021 as a breaking news reporter, focusing on the most interesting angles around the trending news of the day. Natalie largely drove BI’s coverage around the fatal “Rust” shooting involving Alec Baldwin and the disappearance and murder of Gabby Petito.Prior to joining BI, Natalie worked for the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and The Brooklyn Paper. She has an extensive background covering crime and courts. During her more than 12-year journalism career, she did a stint covering the police beat out of the headquarters for the New York Police Department. Natalie, a Brooklyn native, graduated from Brooklyn College in 2012 with a journalism degree. Popular articles