Trump Media sells early post access to traders for $100k monthly

Trump Media & Technology Group has signed up more than 10 customers for a new service that provides early access to Truth Social posts, charging high-frequency trading firms between $60,000 and $100,000 per month for a milliseconds-long speed advantage. The tool, known as Truth API, delivers posts from top users including President Donald Trump before they appear to the general public.

The rollout comes as the company attempts to offset a deepening financial hole. Trump Media reported a $238 million loss for the three months ending in June, a figure more than ten times its loss from the same period a year prior. Interim CEO Kevin McGurn said the API is in its “early innings,” but noted the company is “strongly encouraged” by the initial demand from Wall Street.

Even with just a handful of subscribers, the service could generate up to $1 million in monthly revenue, or $12 million annually. Because Trump retains a roughly 41% stake in Trump Media, he stands to profit directly from the monetization of his own communications. The president's posts have a documented history of moving asset prices, such as an April announcement regarding a pause on planned strikes on Iranian infrastructure that triggered a $1.5 trillion stock market rally.

The arrangement has drawn sharp criticism from legal and economic experts, as well as lawmakers. Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres petitioned the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate the product, arguing it destroys the level playing field by allowing a sitting president's company to sell privileged access to market-moving policy announcements.

“I’ll be blunt,” Gian Luca Clementi, an economics professor at NYU Stern School of Business, said. “This is insider trading by definition.”

Trump Media spokesperson Shannon Devine pushed back against the accusations, stating the API “offers customers the fastest way to ingest publicly available Truth Social data.” She argued critics “must have invented a new theory of ‘insider trading’ based on publicly available information.”

During an earnings presentation on Monday, McGurn framed the product as routine corporate data licensing. “Providing licensed real-time public data through commercial APIs is a well-established business practice across the technology, financial information, and media industries,” he said. “This is no different.”

However, market structure specialists warn the tool represents a troubling shift in how financial information is distributed. Tyler Gellasch, a former SEC counsel who now leads the Healthy Markets Association, noted the SEC is already considering allowing companies to shift from quarterly to semiannual financial disclosures. He warned that relying on paid, private data conduits creates an uneven landscape.

“When you have a market that looks like that, it looks rigged,” Gellasch said.