Trump Media & Technology Group was clearly looking for new sources of revenue when it announced an initiative over the summer called “Truth API.” The idea was controversial but straightforward: The company started selling, for all intents and purposes, advance previews of the messages Donald Trump was poised to publish to his social media platform.

Why would deep-pocketed financial institutions pay exorbitant fees to see presidential declarations before the rest of the public? If you were, say, a hedge fund manager and you didn’t want competitors to have a timing advantage ahead of the White House’s next tariffs announcement, you might very well be inclined to pay up.

Some, evidently, already have. NBC News reported:

Trump Media and Technology Group reported Monday that revenue surged 205% in the third quarter, which it says was “primarily driven” by selling a high-speed feed of posts on Truth Social.

The “Truth API,” as the company calls it, allows news organizations, Wall Street trading firms and other services to pay $60,000 to $100,000 per month for a direct feed of posts on the social network. Critics have slammed the feed as an attempt to profit from President Donald Trump’s posts.

The Washington Post published a related report noting that the president’s media company saw its revenue triple in the third quarter, thanks largely to subscriptions, including the Truth API gambit.

Whether the company should expect this money to keep rolling in, however, is another matter entirely.

For one thing, Trump’s presidency has reached its lame-duck stage, and the Republican’s ability to move markets with online statements has a dwindling shelf life.

For another, there’s an ongoing federal lawsuit challenging the existence of the service, calling Truth API a “scheme” that is “extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional.”

And finally, there’s the incoming Democratic majority on Capitol Hill to consider.

“Every single day, we see a new example of Trump’s rampant corruption,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer recently said on the Senate floor. “Senate Democrats are putting all of Trump’s scams under the magnifying glass in the coming weeks, and Trump’s new ‘Truth API’ stands out as one of his most corrupt grifts yet.”

The New York Democrat added, “Trump imposes new tariffs? Subscribers can short their stocks before anyone else. Trump announces a new contract? Subscribers know where to invest. Trump shakes up the Fed? Subscribers get to reposition before the rest of the market blinks. Meanwhile, Trump rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars in subscription fees. Truth API is the exact definition of insider trading. It’s textbook pay-to-play.”

He’s hardly alone in making this case. Indeed, Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether the gambit is even legal.

“This appears to be an outrageous abuse of the President’s office for his personal benefit that undermines everyday investors and the integrity of our markets, while enriching Wall Street and other wealthy insiders,” Warren and Schiff wrote in a letter dated July 28 to SEC Chair Paul Atkins.

Time will tell what, if anything, the SEC intends to do, but in the meantime, Rep. Jamie Raskin, who will soon lead the House Judiciary Committee, launched an investigation into the service a few months ago.

“A public official with access to the ultimate insider information — his own next actions and policies as the Chief Executive of the United States — is selling advance access to that market-moving information to the high bidders at the expense of all other investors who may lack the steep $100,000 subscription,” the Maryland Democrat said. “This White House-Wall Street-Trump-Business feedback loop represents the depraved essence of insider trading.”

When Raskin has subpoena power, it stands to reason that his investigation will uncover vastly more information. Watch this space.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Trump’s media company finds customers seeking special access to president’s posts appeared first on MS NOW.

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