Bloomberg and two Wall Street trading firms, Susquehanna International Group and Jump Trading, have agreed to pay for faster access to President Trump's Truth Social posts, Reuters reported on Wednesday — a paid service, the Truth API, that sells for up to $100,000 a month. The sign-ups, which had not been previously reported, are reported by Reuters according to people with direct knowledge of the matter; the identities of the three customers are not confirmed on the record by any party to the deals, all three firms declined to comment, and Trump Media disputes the reporting.
The product is a data feed sold by Trump Media and Technology Group, which operates Truth Social and pitched its fastest-access service to trading firms and other financial institutions in July. Trump Media officials have described the timing advantage as 50 milliseconds over reading the posts on the app — a sliver of time that matters because Trump's posts can move markets: Reuters cites oil futures sinking after he announced a ceasefire in the Iran war on Truth Social in April, and high-frequency trading software can read, analyse and execute a trade in thousandths of a second. In August, Trump Media told investors it had signed more than 10 customer agreements, primarily with Wall Street trading firms paying between $60,000 and $100,000 a month; what Bloomberg, Susquehanna and Jump Trading individually pay has not been disclosed.
Trump Media said in a statement: "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 percent of Trump Media and Trump is its sole beneficiary; White House spokesman Davis Ingle said neither Trump nor his family is directly involved in any portfolio investment decisions, and he did not address the allegation that the president was improperly using his office. The SEC declined to comment, and Reuters itself said it will assess the service but has no current plans to subscribe.
Critics have called the arrangement unethical, and Reuters describes the deals as likely the first time a business tied to a sitting president has sold access to his statements. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff asked the SEC in July to investigate whether the service violated securities laws, describing it as a "shocking abuse" of office; whether the SEC has opened any investigation is unknown. 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 — a suit the plaintiffs described as aimed at a "profoundly corrupt" arrangement, and which is ongoing. A Trump Media spokesperson answered the Democrats' criticism by saying they "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."
For citizens, the question is a level playing field. A president's public statements can move the price of oil, stocks and retirement savings in seconds; under this service, firms that can pay up to $100,000 a month receive those statements a fraction of a second before the household investor reading the free app. Supporters of the service call it a standard data product, sold openly the way financial data has always been sold; critics call it charging Wall Street for speed on government information. Either way, the ordinary investor is the last to know.
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