President Donald Trump was sued in federal court Wednesday to stop him from making money off a new, paid service at his Truth Social company offering early, exclusive access to his posts on U.S. policy.
The lawsuit alleges the service offering paying customers sneak peeks of his posts about U.S. policy on war, tariffs and other issues violates the Constitution and that official announcements should be made available to everyone at the same time. The new subscription service rolled out earlier this month is charging Wall Street firms as much as $100,000 a month to trade off the market-moving posts before others.
“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, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a plaintiff in the case along with news outlet The Intercept.
Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media & Technology, said selling fast access to traders is common in its industry, and that the plaintiffs are just trying to silence the president.
“Information from President Trump is disseminated by countless platforms and news outlets, many of which offer subscription APIs,” it said in a statement, using the acronym for the fast access service. “Now, left wing activists are trying to wrongfully weaponize the courts to censor him again and harm our shareholders.”
