Anger rippled through Wall Street on Friday after reports that Donald Trump’s social media business is preparing to ask clients to pay up to $100,000 a month for advance access to the president’s potentially market-shifting posts.
Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) has discussed a six-figure monthly fee with potential customers, according to people familiar with the negotiations who spoke to the Financial Times.
For investment firms, ultra-fast financial data is already a prized commodity. Many funds rely on split-second information streams that feed trading algorithms, where even a tiny delay can separate a winning trade from a costly mistake.
Trump’s posts have repeatedly shown the power to jolt markets, particularly when they signal major policy moves or geopolitical developments, including military action in oil-sensitive regions such as Iran and Venezuela or new tariffs aimed at key US trading partners.
The proposed product, called the “Truth API,” has triggered frustration among traders who may now face another expensive data expense. TMTG said the service is expected to debut next month and that some customers have already committed to signing up.
“People will pay because they have to,” one hedge fund chief told the FT. “If you’re behind on that news, you’ll get crushed.”
TMTG has argued that ordinary users would be unlikely to detect any difference, saying the edge being sold is so small it is measured only in milliseconds.
The company, majority owned by the Trump family, operates Truth Social, the platform used by the President.
Donald Trump looks at his phone during a roundtable with governors on the reopening of America’s small businesses, in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, June, 2020
Trump rings the opening bell of the Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to celebrate the first day of trading for Trump Accounts in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, July 6
New York Stock Exchange President Stacey Cunningham, right, and first lady Melania Trump pose for a picture after Trump signed a guest book on the floor of the NYSE before ringing the opening bell in New York, Monday, Sept. 23, 2019
Interim CEO Kevin McGurn said: ‘Markets already move on Truth Social posts … As adoption grows, we expect Truth API to become a meaningful, ongoing source of revenue for the company.’
TMTG’s stock price has plunged more than 70 percent since the president took office last year, erasing $6 billion in shareholder wealth.
The stock rose 0.6 percent to $9.63 on Thursday.
Trump’s annual financial disclosure showed he took in more than $1 billion in revenue last year from the same companies and offerings.
Those returns, set against billions in investor losses tied to new Trump family crypto businesses, have sharpened scrutiny of his holdings.
Conflict of interest laws would bar US government officials from owning a company that profits off their office by selling access to their decisions through public posts, Kathleen Clark of Washington University School of Law told the AP.
Every president for at least five decades has placed their assets in a blind trust, leaving them in the dark about what stocks were being traded on their behalf.
Trump broke with that precedent and refused a blind trust, meaning he can see exactly what his money managers are trading.
Neither Trump nor his family directs the trades, under the arrangement he simply knows what is in his portfolio.
The President has promoted more than 20 companies on Truth Social just days after buying their shares, according to a CNN analysis.
Some of those posts were paired with announcements that the government would take action on issues that could benefit the firms, the analysis states.
It is unclear whether the President knew of the trades before posting about them or their products.
The billionaire Republican has said he’d sign a bill forbidding stock trading among lawmakers but has vehemently pushed back on efforts to curtail the transactions of US presidents.
The White House denied that Trump has profited from the presidency.
