By Anirban Sen and Edmund Lee
NEW YORK, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Truth Social, the social media platform founded by President Donald Trump, has signed up news and data provider Bloomberg and two Wall Street firms for faster access to the president’s posts, which it sells for up to $100,000 a month, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The firms are Susquehanna International Group and Jump Trading, both high-frequency trading firms focused on algorithmic and automated strategies.
The service gives subscribers a timing advantage to Trump's posts on Truth Social, which has the potential to create swings in financial markets and to give Wall Street traders an edge not available to everyday investors. The companies’ purchase of the Truth API service hasn’t been previously reported. An API is a programming interface that is used as a digital bridge that allows one system to connect to another.
Trump Media and Technology Group announced its fastest-access product in July, and pitched it to trading firms and other financial institutions. The deals likely mark the first time a business tied to a sitting president has sold access to their statements, which some critics have called unethical.
While Truth Social’s pay-for-access plan ventures into untested legal territory, Intercept Media and the Freedom of the Press Foundation sued Trump in August, seeking to block the White House from posting official government announcements exclusively on Truth Social while the paid feed exists. The suit, which is ongoing, alleges that erecting a financial barrier to government information is potentially unconstitutional and favors wealthy Wall Street firms.
Bloomberg, Jump Trading and Susquehanna declined to comment.
In a statement, Trump Media said: “Truth Social offers an industry-standard API product for which there is significant demand across industries. We take customer confidentiality seriously. This reporting is based on misleading information being peddled by anonymous sources aimed at harming our company, customers and shareholders.”
The president’s family trust owns 41% of Trump Media, and Trump is the trust’s sole beneficiary.
Shares of the company have fallen more than 50% so far this year. The market value of Trump Media has been volatile since it went public; it closed at about $8 billion in its March 2024 debut, but is now worth about $1.8 billion. The company has lost about $1.76 billion since 2024, including non-cash charges.
Trump Media’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings listTrump, Jr., as the trustee of the family trust, with sole voting and investment power.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle said neither Trump nor his family is directly involved in any portfolio investment decisions but did not address the allegations that the president was improperly using his office.
Trump Jr. did not respond to a comment request. Questions about his role in the business were referred to the Trump Organization, which did not respond to requests for comment.
MARKET-MOVING POSTS
The service is designed to allow customers to read Trump's posts more quickly than a human would by constantly checking the app. The timing advantage, described as 50 milliseconds by Trump Media officials, can matter to trading firms or financial news and data organizations because a US president’s posts can create swings in the value of assets.
High-frequency Wall Street traders employ software that ingests news headlines, company announcements and government statements to search for market-moving information. The software can read, analyze and execute a trade in thousandths of a second.
In one example of how Trump's posts can move markets, oil futures sank after he announced on Truth Social a ceasefire in the Iran war in April.
In August, Trump Media told investors it had "signed more than 10 customer agreements” which Reuters was unable to confirm. The company didn’t name the clients, but said they were primarily Wall Street trading firms that are paying between $60,000 and $100,000 a month.
Reuters, a financial-news competitor to Bloomberg, said in a statement: "We will assess the service, but have no current plans to subscribe."
Selling faster access to Trump's posts has drawn criticism from Democrats and media entities.
Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and California's Adam Schiff said in July that they had asked the US Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether the service violated securities laws. They described it as a “shocking abuse” of office by a president seeking personal gain, without providing further explanation.
The SEC declined to comment.
A TMTG spokesperson said, “Congressional Democrats continue to mischaracterize Truth API either out of ideological opposition to free markets or a failure to grasp the distinction between public and nonpublic information.”
In the lawsuit against Trump by Intercept Media and non-profit Freedom of the Press Foundation, the plaintiffs described the paid data service as "profoundly corrupt." The suit also alleges the service would violate the First Amendment rights of the public who don’t have equal access to the information and it would violate the Fifth Amendment by charging “unreasonable sums” for equal access to information guaranteed by law.
The White House’s Ingle did not directly address the lawsuit or its allegations, saying, “President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public – which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office.”
(Reporting by Anirban Sen and Edmund Lee in New York; Editing by Anna Driver, Megan Davies and Kenneth Li)