Trump Media to make market-relevant Truth Social posts accessible for a fee

Background: Markets watching Truth Social

The background is the growing importance of the platform for the financial markets. "The markets already react to posts on Truth Social," said Kevin McGurn, interim chief of the Trump Media and Technology Group. He pointed out that individual posts by the President had repeatedly triggered price movements on stock and bond markets.

With the Truth API, professional users will in future be able to retrieve posts in real time and feed them into their data streams. Trump Media says it aims to close a gap that had previously arisen through manual copying or scraping. The price and the exact terms were not initially disclosed in detail.

Donald Trump comments on his online platform Truth Social almost daily on various topics, including the economy, foreign policy, and personal attacks on political opponents. The platform was launched after his expulsion from Twitter in January 2021 and is considered his most important direct communication tool.

Criticism over mixing office and business

Critics repeatedly accuse the 80-year-old of exploiting his presidency to make private money. They see the new business model as a blending of public office and private company. Supporters argue that markets would react to the President's statements regardless, and that an official data stream would simply provide more transparency.

Trump Media went public in 2024 through a merger with a listed shell company and experienced strong price fluctuations in the following months. The company operates the streaming service Truth+ in addition to Truth Social and plans further products around the brand.

The news about the Truth API was first spread by the news agency AFP. Trump Media initially did not comment on possible conflicts of interest or on the question of whether posts by the President on the platform are editorially reviewed before they are distributed via the API.

Open questions on ethics and oversight

Observers in Washington expect ethics officers and members of Congress to examine the new offering. It remains unclear whether existing rules on the disclosure of the President's outside income apply to revenue from this business. Trump Media stated only that it complies with all applicable laws.

It also remains unclear how the service will affect prices on the financial markets. Should the API actually offer a measurable time advantage, subscribers could adjust their trading decisions to the President's statements faster than other market participants.

The development comes at a time when US regulators are taking a closer look at the influence of social media on the financial markets. Just last year, the securities regulator SEC had investigated several cases in which individual influencers had attracted attention through market-moving posts.