San Francisco sues Trump Media for selling early access to Trump posts | The Verge

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San Francisco sues Trump Media for selling early access to Trump posts

The city is accusing Trump Media of facilitating insider trading.

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San Francisco is suing the Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company behind Truth Social, for selling early access to President Donald Trump’s posts on the social media site. The lawsuit, filed today in California state court, alleges that the Truth API feed is a “corrupt business scheme” that violates both California’s Unfair Competition Law and federal ethics and anti-corruption laws that prohibit insider trading.

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle recently called Truth Social the “most powerful and popular social media platform in the world.” While the latter part of that statement is objectively untrue based on any credible estimates — in fact, Truth Social traffic has declined over the last year — Trump often makes high-stakes announcements in his capacity as president on the platform, and his posts there have a clear effect on the global economy. To capitalize on this, Trump Media recently launched Truth API, a service that charges select customers $100,000 a month for early access to the 10 most influential accounts on Truth Social, including Trump’s and those of other White House officials. Trump Media’s interim CEO, Kevin Mc Gurn, acknowledged as much in his announcement of Truth API, saying that “markets already move on Truth Social posts.”

The San Francisco lawsuit cites several examples of this, some of which took place after the launch of Truth API. On August 21st, for example, Trump posted that the federal government was going to “lower the price of ground beef for working families” by exempting some ground beef imports from tariffs. When the market opened a few hours later, cattle futures declined significantly, according to the complaint.

In today’s markets, early access means millions of dollars. This business scheme has turned public trust into private property.

“Trump Media has unlawfully created, priced, marketed, and operated a commercial mechanism that knowingly and willfully facilitates Trump’s use of nonpublic information for private profit,” the complaint alleges. The San Francisco suit alleges that Truth API is a way of making the floundering Trump Media — which reported a net loss of more than $238 million earlier this year — profitable.

Per his agreement with Trump Media, Truth Social has a six-hour exclusivity window on Trump’s posts, meaning he can’t post the same material elsewhere in that time frame. Even before the launch of Truth API, Trump’s Truth Social profile was extremely valuable for investors — so valuable that the company has sought to capitalize on it. The San Francisco complaint cites reports of hedge fund executives who say they feel pressured to buy the service even though they think it’s legally risky. “It’s a pay-to-play scheme for early access to the president’s market-moving government statements,” San Francisco city attorney David Chiu said in a Tuesday press conference. “In today’s markets, early access means millions of dollars. This business scheme has turned public trust into private property.” Beyond violating insider trading laws, the suit claims, Truth API disadvantages everyday investors by paywalling financially valuable information.

Trump Media hasn’t disclosed its list of Truth API clients, but the company has said it plans on marketing the product to AI companies and large news organizations.

The city has asked a judge to forbid Trump Media from offering Truth API or similar services, and to impose a fine of $2,500 per violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law.

This isn’t the first time Trump has been sued over Truth API. In August, The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation filed a joint lawsuit in a New York federal court over the product, which it called “extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional.”

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