Trump Sells Wall Street a $100k-Per-Month Head Start on His Truth Social Posts Despite Senators’ Insider-Trading Warning

Trump Media’s paid data feed, which charges trading firms up to $100,000 a month for millisecond-early access to the president’s Truth Social posts, launched on Aug. 1. Trump’s family holds roughly 41% of the company through a trust controlled by his son, Donald Trump Jr., meaning every subscription sold financially benefits the president—a conflict Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) flagged in a letter to SEC Chair Paul Atkins before the launch.

The senators noted that Trump has previously used Truth Social to promote individual stocks, and argued that selling paying subscribers a speed advantage on his own market-moving posts is different from other forms of enhanced access, since those posts are statements from a sitting president.

CNBC reports:

Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether Trump Media & Technology Group is violating the law by selling faster access to President Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts. “This appears to be an outrageous abuse of the President’s office for his personal benefit …” the Democratic senators wrote. … They asked Atkins to complete a legal analysis of Trump Media’s new service, including laws that “prohibit insider trading and market manipulation,” before it begins on Aug. 1. … Trump “stands to profit from the launch of this service,” as do the “firms and wealthy individuals that pay the subscription fee” to get his posts faster, the senators noted.

Truth API could provide particular advantage to high-frequency trading firms, they warned. “While financial firms and analysts have relied on manual monitoring of Truth Social, the API automatically feeds around-the-clock Truth Social posts directly to those who are simply willing to pay up front for milliseconds of additional notice.”

Trump Media’s response was to dismiss the senators’ concerns as either stemming from “ideological opposition to free markets” or a basic misunderstanding of securities law. What the response did not include is a denial that the president profits every time someone pays to read his posts a few milliseconds early. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called Truth API “the exact definition of insider trading.” Worth keeping in mind that the SEC tasked with policing any of this is chaired by a Trump appointee.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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