By now, you may have heard that the company behind Truth Social, Trump Media and Technology Group, plans to sell extra-fast access to the most influential posts on the platform to high-paying clients. Trump is the most-followed person on Truth Social, and so the product, called Truth API, appears aimed at monetizing early access to Trump’s market-moving “truths,” selling it to Wall Street banks and trading firms.
Outrage at the mind-boggling scheme was instantaneous. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called it “an egregious scheme to profit off the presidency and enrich Wall Street while doing nothing to help Americans.” Others went further; “Trump makes more off insider trading,” wrote Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO).
Whether the set up actually violates insider trading laws and regulations isn’t yet clear, experts told TPM.
But with a gutted batch of no-longer-independent executive regulatory agencies and a Republican controlled Congress that has repeatedly handed over its authority to the White House, clarity may not be forthcoming. Trump Media and Technology Group’s galling provocation is indicative of the state of financial regulation under Trump, experts said.
“When you don’t have enforcement of the rules and regulations, when there are different legal outcomes for the president than there would be for any other market actor that acted this egregiously,” Corey Frayer, former senior advisor at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, told TPM, “it becomes hard to hold anyone accountable.”
The new, exclusive access to Trump’s social posts is of a piece with the myriad deregulatory frameworks the Trump administration’s financial agencies have worked to mount, with the president’s own shoddy crypto ventures, and with a presidential administration that has netted Trump and his family unprecedented riches at times at the expense of ordinary retail investors.
An SEC spokesperson declined to comment.
Trump Media and Technology Group, which is held by President Donald Trump’s revocable trust, announced its new “business-to-business” subscription model in a press release on Thursday. The service will be available to “institutional customers” in less than two weeks, the release said, and some users have already been enrolled.
This service is designed to make money for the company, interim CEO Kevin McGurn said in the release.
“As adoption grows, we expect Truth API to become a meaningful, ongoing source of revenue for the company, creating lasting value for shareholders,” McGurn said.
Trump’s ability to move markets through Truth Social is tremendous. He has announced various positions on the war in Iran that impact the oil market. In April 2025, he explicitly told investors to “buy” via Truth Social just hours before pausing almost all of his tariffs.
Truth API risks further harming small investors while providing the most benefit to the most wealthy and well-connected, Granville Martin, a corporate attorney and former general counsel at the Society for Corporate Governance, told TPM.
“This idea is so corrosive to capital formation because it is institutionalizing rich, corrupt access to material information,” said Martin.
There are already uneven trading conditions, Mark Spiegel, managing member and portfolio manager at Stanphyl Capital Partners, told Reuters. Truth API would be an addition to an existing ecosystem.
“It certainly does not seem fair, but yes, a tech platform can tier its distribution of information without violating federal securities laws,” Robert Frenchman, a partner at the Dynamis law firm in New York, told Reuters.
But early access to the president’s policy positions, information about government contracts, or official action that could influence investment decisions differs from a subscription to a financial news service, said Granville, because of the decisively influential nature of the material information that the president can provide.
“The difference is the president is the actual decision maker about whether more oil or less oil is going to be available on the market,” said Granville.
Frayer, who served at the SEC during former president Joe Biden’s administration and currently serves as director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America, said Congress should be the accountability mechanism for this kind of action from a sitting president.
“And so ultimately, if Congress is not willing to hold the president accountable, the agencies he controls like the SEC or the DOJ certainly aren’t going to be able to,” Frayer said.
“I think a chair of the SEC that believed in the importance of the independence of that institution — not just from a fairness perspective, but from a public trust and a political perspective — would need to investigate and potentially bring an enforcement action against even the president, regardless of the likely outcome, to give people faith that no one is above the law.”
“Christ, what an asshole.” – Lucy van Pelt
When all you care about is money (now that sex is likely out of the equation), the whole world looks like a cash register.
In a galaxy far far away in a time long long ago there used to be something called an emoluments clause.
I’d pay for early access to the announcement of his death. Because, every second gained would be a
priceless addition to my happiness.
His American flag pin should be ripped off his lapel.