Trump Media & Technology Group—the company owned by President Donald Trump that operates Truth Social—is facing a lawsuit alleging that its plan to monetize access to the social media posts of the president and his closest advisers through its Truth API tool is unconstitutional.
Announced in July and rolled out at the start of August, Trump Media describes its API as a data feed that “provides licensed, real-time access to posts from the highest-ranking Truth Social accounts.” It does so at prices ranging from $60,000 to $100,000 per month, according to Trump Media CEO Kevin McGurn. Under the terms of the licensing agreement, Truth API subscribers will receive posts from the Trump administration delivered directly to their devices in “milliseconds,” giving them an edge over regular users scrolling through their social feeds.
Filed by The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the lawsuit states that the president’s monetization of government information is “profoundly corrupt” and violates the First and Fifth Amendments. The groups argue they have a “right to access President Trump’s public comments on equal terms with other members of the press and public,” which is burdened by the president’s Truth API “scheme.” They say the plan to sell access to the posts burdens their First Amendment right “not to associate with Truth Social or subsidize its expressive activity” by conditioning “faster access” to government information on “subsidizing” government officials’ activity on Truth Social.
In response to the lawsuit, a spokesman for Trump Media told CBS News that Truth API is no different than the subscription APIs offered by “countless platforms and news outlets” that disseminate the president’s social posts. The spokesman described the lawsuit as an attempt to “weaponize the courts to censor him again and harm our shareholders.”
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, tells Reason that there’s “no analogy between an independent news outlet and official statements by the president of the United States.” The president makes the news while outlets simply report on it, unlike Truth API, Stern says, which is designed to “ultimately benefit the president and his business.” Trump is the largest shareholder in Trump Media through The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, which owns a 41.5 percent stake in the company, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
The plan has the tells of a last-ditch effort to save the company. Trump Media has failed to turn a profit since its founding in 2021. The company reported a $238.1 million net loss in the second quarter of 2026, according to its latest earnings report. On Tuesday, shares of Trump Media slipped nearly 6 percent. Its stock has “lost bout 49% of its value over the past year,” according to CBS News.
McGurn has called criticism of the plan “misinformed,” arguing Truth API’s customers merely receive “publicly available posts fractionally faster.” But Stern says the venture is “blatantly unconstitutional,” since its entire “value proposition” is that the president’s posts move markets, a statement echoed by McGurn himself when he announced the idea.
Indeed, after facing a battle earlier this year with banking-industry lobbyists, the cryptocurrency industry turned to the Trump administration for help. One Truth Social post later, shares within the industry “surged” after “President Donald Trump threw his weight” behind the industry, CNBC reported in March. Companies like Citigroup and Palantir have seen their stock prices jump after the president mentioned them on Truth Social.
The Trump administration has also put its thumb on the scale and manipulated markets by taking controlling shares of private companies. Since Trump’s return to office, the government has taken equity stakes in 30 companies to date, according to the Cato Institute. In the second quarter of 2026, Intel—which the government took a 10 percent equity stake in last August—reported 25 percent year-over-year revenue growth. This was the company’s “best growth in 15 years,” according to Yahoo Finance.
Truth API is just a continuation of this trend, allowing the president to auction off early access to government information for his own personal gain. Stern says the “perverse incentives that this scheme sets up are endless.”
“It’s almost impossible to contemplate all of the scenarios for market manipulation,” he adds.
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