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The Trump family’s media company is to sell banks and trading firms high-speed access to the US president’s social media posts, meaning the announcements that have repeatedly moved global markets will reach paying algorithms milliseconds before they reach anyone else.
Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) unveiled the paid-for, licensed data feed on Thursday, promising banks and trading houses “the fastest” access to posts from influential accounts on Truth Social, its social media app.
The product, called Truth API, will deliver posts from the platform’s ten most influential accounts in “milliseconds”, significantly faster than a regular push notification, according to a company spokesperson.
Why should a business owner in Birmingham care about the plumbing of Wall Street data feeds? Because Trump, who has 12.9 million followers on Truth Social, regularly uses the platform to announce government policy, including news about tariffs and trade restrictions.
Those posts have moved markets before officials have finished drafting the accompanying paperwork. Tariff announcements have rattled currency markets and swung the pound, and the resulting duties are still squeezing British exporters eighteen months into the second Trump administration.
In practice, the UK firm hedging its dollar exposure, fixing input prices or watching its pension scheme will now be reacting to news that paying machines have already traded on.
TMTG says the feed is designed for organisations “most impacted by the cost of a delay in information”, such as algorithmic trading firms. Until now, “firms that prioritise tracking influential Truth posts have relied on manual monitoring”, it added.
It is the latest attempt to squeeze revenue from the platform, following plans to integrate artificial intelligence into Truth Social and ventures into streaming and cryptocurrency.
The family connection is what has raised eyebrows. The Trump family is TMTG’s biggest shareholder: the Donald J Trump Revocable Trust holds about 114.75 million shares, around 41 per cent of the company’s outstanding stock, according to regulatory filings. Some of the most-followed accounts on Truth Social belong to the president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump.
Ethics watchdogs were quick to criticise the mixing of the family’s business interests with the president’s influence and access to information.
Daniel Lobo-Lewis, co-founder of the Political Integrity Project, a nonpartisan watchdog tracking the money behind US politics, said: “It creates an incentive for him [Trump] to paywall public information in order to enrich himself.”
Kathleen Clark, a professor at the Washington University School of Law who specialises in government conflict of interest rules, went further: “He’s selling expedited, privileged access to information about what he is doing as president. It’s yet more brazen corruption, an improper exploitation of government power to enrich himself.”
Whether it is lawful is a separate question, and the answer appears to be yes. Robert Frenchman, a partner at the Dynamis law firm in New York who has defended clients in federal government trading investigations, said platforms are allowed to offer clients early access even if it disadvantages some market participants.
“It certainly does not seem fair, but yes, a tech platform can tier its distribution of information without violating federal securities laws,” he said.
The White House referred Fund Manager Today, Business Matters’ sister title, to TMTG when asked to comment. TMTG was contacted for comment.
For British SMEs, the lesson is less about Washington ethics and more about market structure. The gap between an announcement and your awareness of it now has a price tag, and someone else is paying it.
