‘Brazen corruption’: critics denounce Trump media plan to sell priority access to Truth Social posts | New York
Donald Trump’s media company plans to charge for exclusive high-speed access to Truth Social posts, possibly including his own, that affect national security and financial markets.
The move, announced Thursday, will allow Wall Street trading firms and other institutions to hear from top contributors to Truth Social within milliseconds so they can profit from subsequent moves in stocks, bonds and interest rates.
The new service, called Truth PSI, comes amid other deals by Trump and his family business that critics say exploit the presidency for profit. It follows similar paid access offerings on rival platforms, but with one important difference: The most popular Truth Social poster is the president himself, and as the largest shareholder of the publicly traded parent company, he will directly benefit.
“He’s selling fast, privileged access to information about what he’s doing as president,” said Kathleen Clark of the University of Washington School of Law, an expert on government conflict of interest rules. “This is an even more brazen corruption, an improper use of the power of government to enrich oneself.”
The Trump family company declined to comment on whether the new feature profited from the presidency. Trump Media + Technology, Truth Social’s publicly traded parent company, did not respond to emailed questions, including whether the president’s posts would be excluded from the offer.
This will allow investors to see “the highest-rated Truth Social accounts” before others, a press release states. The president has the most followers (12.9 million), followed by his oldest son, Donald Jr. and his son Eric follows closely behind.
The statement did not specify how much customers would be charged.
Over the past few months, Trump has announced major decisions and opinions on his platform, including posts about the Iran war, tariffs and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s crackdown on U.S. cities. Posts about Iran are particularly influential because investors worry that higher oil prices will continue to fuel inflation and possibly force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.
Shares of Trump Media + Technology have fallen more than 70% since the president took office last year, wiping $6 billion from shareholders’ wealth. Those losses, along with billions of dollars in investor losses tied to the Trump family’s new crypto businesses, drew scrutiny after Trump’s annual disclosure of his financial holdings showed he had earned more than $1 billion from the same companies and offerings last year.
Conflict of interest laws would prevent U.S. government officials from owning a company that profits from their offices by selling access to their decisions through public posts, says the University of Washington’s Clark. However, it states that the president and vice president are excluded from this provision.
Yet every president since the law was passed decades ago has acted as if it were valid; they sold individual stocks, divested their business assets, or blindly placed their financial assets in trust so that they would not know what was being bought and sold on their behalf while exercising their power; but Trump denied it.
Trump Media has been trying to boost its stock price lately by diving into a variety of sectors, including cryptocurrency, financial services and even nuclear fusion. The company recently hired Kevin McGurn, a veteran media executive, to replace its longtime CEO Devin Nunes, a former congressman.
In the statement, McGurn described the Truth PSI move as part of a “monetization strategy from private assets.” He added that he expects it to be a “meaningful, ongoing source of income.”
Trump Media said it plans to launch the service next month and has already signed up customers.
The stock rose 0.6% to $9.63 on Thursday. Last year, before Trump took office, this figure closed at $40.
