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**Trump Media is turning the president's social media posts into a paid data product for Wall Street, raising new questions about the intersection of public office and private profit.** Trump Media & Technology Group will begin selling a real-time data feed of Truth Social posts to Wall Street firms on Aug. 1, monetizing the market-moving power of President Donald Trump's account as the company's stock extended its decline to 84% from its 2024 debut. "Markets already move on Truth Social posts," Kevin McGurn, interim chief executive officer at Trump Media, said in a statement. The service, called Truth API, will deliver posts from the platform's highest-ranking accounts to paying customers in milliseconds, the company said. Trump Media has already signed up institutional clients for the feed, which operates 24 hours a day and includes an archive of posts dating to 2022. The company did not disclose pricing. The product creates a direct revenue stream from the president's official communications, which have repeatedly moved markets — from tariff announcements to military strikes on Iran. Trump holds about 53% of Trump Media shares through a revocable trust managed by his son Donald Trump Jr., with the stake valued at more than $1 billion as of Thursday's close. **The Conflict-of-Interest Question** Ethics attorneys and former regulators have questioned whether a sitting president can legally monetize the information value of his official statements. Truth Social has effectively become the de facto presidential press room, with Trump posting policy announcements — including tariff rates and military decisions — on the platform before any other channel. "It's a huge conflict of interest," said Virginia Canter, an ethics attorney at Democracy Defenders Fund, a nonprofit that has been critical of the Trump administration. The president "has an obligation to the American people to convey information to them publicly, and he's now funneling it through a private channel in which he has a private interest as one of its largest shareholders." Tyler Gellasch, a former Securities and Exchange Commission attorney who now runs the financial industry nonprofit Healthy Markets Association, said the demand for faster access to Trump's posts is clear. "The real question is, when it involves any type of government official, can they monetize that value themselves?" he said. **A New Revenue Stream for a Loss-Making Company** Truth API represents Trump Media's latest attempt to diversify beyond its core social media business, which remains unprofitable. The company reported a net loss of $406 million in the first quarter of 2026, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Trump Media has ventured into streaming and cryptocurrency, and in December announced a merger agreement with a nuclear-fusion company. The company also purchased bitcoin as part of a crypto bet, only to suffer losses when prices fell. McGurn described Truth API as a "high-margin, recurring revenue stream" that advances the company's strategy of monetizing proprietary assets. Trump Media said some firms have been scraping its data without permission and warned it would soon block those methods, forcing firms to buy the official feed. The company went public through a blank-check merger in March 2024, trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker DJT. Roughly 114 million shares — now 42% of the company — were issued to Trump, who transferred them to a revocable trust managed by his son. Shares fell 8.4% on Friday following the announcement, bringing the total decline from the 2024 debut to 84%, according to FactSet data. Beyond Trump, the platform's largest accounts include Donald Trump Jr. with 7.4 million followers, Eric Trump with 3.3 million, former Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes with 4.5 million, and former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino with 3.5 million. None of those accounts carry the same market-moving weight as the president's feed. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
**Trump Media & Technology Group is turning Truth Social's political firehose into a paid data feed for Wall Street.** Trump Media & Technology Group will begin selling licensed, real-time access to Truth Social posts from President Donald Trump and other senior US officials on Aug. 1, opening a new data licensing revenue stream for the $3.68 million media business. "Financial firms have been scraping Truth Social data for months, often in violation of our terms of service," Kevin McGurn, interim chief executive officer at Trump Media, said in an interview. "We're going to create a lot of friction for those folks that aren't coming to us directly." The Truth API provides real-time access to posts from the platform's top 10 trending accounts, including Trump, the White House, FBI Director Kash Patel, White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. McGurn said the company has already signed financial news organizations and high-frequency trading firms as customers ahead of the launch, and plans to expand the API to more accounts for clients willing to pay more. The company is also exploring licensing Truth Social data for AI model training, he said. The API launch marks Trump Media's first expansion into data licensing as it seeks recurring revenue beyond advertising and subscriptions. The company, which went public in 2024 through a SPAC merger, reported $3.68 million in 2025 revenue against a $712 million net loss driven largely by cryptocurrency investment charges. It is now awaiting the close of a roughly $6 billion merger with fusion-energy company TAE Technologies as it evolves into a broader holding company. DJT shares extended gains in premarket trading after closing about 6 percent higher in the previous session. The move puts Trump Media in direct competition with established financial data providers such as Bloomberg and Reuters, which charge thousands of dollars per terminal for real-time news and data. While Truth Social's user base is far smaller than X's — the platform formerly known as Twitter — the accounts included in the API belong to decision-makers whose public statements can move markets. McGurn, a former executive at Shazam, Hulu, Vevo and T-Mobile, said the licensed API will be significantly faster than scraping, giving institutional clients a speed advantage in executing trades based on policy signals. The API launch comes as social media data has become increasingly valuable to quantitative trading firms that use natural language processing to gauge market sentiment from political and policy signals. Rival platforms including X have long offered paid API access to developers and institutions, though Trump Media's offering is unique in its focus on a curated set of high-ranking government accounts whose posts can trigger immediate market reactions. For investors, the question is whether data licensing can meaningfully move the needle for a company with $3.68 million in annual revenue. Even if the API generates several million dollars annually, it would represent a fraction of the revenue at established data providers. Bloomberg LP alone generates more than $10 billion in terminal and data revenue each year. However, the API business could improve Trump Media's revenue mix by adding a higher-margin, recurring component to its advertising and subscription base, and the AI training data opportunity could prove larger if demand for political and policy content grows. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
A Charles Schwab account linked to former President Donald Trump executed an automated trading spree Wednesday, buying shares across a basket of stocks after a federal appeals court ruled in favor of the Trump family in a long-running civil fraud case. The account, which has been dormant for months, triggered a pre-programmed trading algorithm that purchased stakes in at least 12 companies, according to people familiar with the matter. The total value of the trades exceeded $47 million, making it one of the largest single-day trading activities linked to a political figure in recent years. "This is an unusual pattern of activity for an account that had been inactive," said Sarah B. Johnson, a former SEC enforcement attorney now in private practice. "The automation suggests the trading strategy was pre-planned and tied to a specific trigger event." The legal win came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which overturned a lower court ruling that had imposed financial penalties on Trump family businesses. The decision removes a significant legal overhang that had weighed on the family's business interests. Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., the parent company of Truth Social, surged 18% to $34.22 in heavy trading Wednesday, with volume reaching 3.2 times the 20-day average. Several other companies with ties to the Trump family also saw unusual trading activity, though the specific holdings in the Schwab account were not immediately disclosed. The automated trading raises questions about the use of algorithmic strategies by politically connected individuals. Charles Schwab Corp. declined to comment on specific accounts, citing client privacy policies. The brokerage said it complies with all applicable regulations and monitors accounts for unusual activity. The trades come as the broader market faces headwinds from the ongoing US-Iran conflict, which has pushed oil prices above $78 per barrel and weighed on equity indices. The S&P 500 fell 0.3% Wednesday before recovering some losses. The legal ruling removes a key uncertainty for Trump-linked assets, but the automated nature of the trading may draw scrutiny from regulators. The SEC has previously flagged concerns about the use of pre-programmed trading strategies by corporate insiders and politically exposed persons. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.