President Donald Trump’s media company is reportedly planning to introduce a paid service offering high-speed access to Truth Social posts, including those that could impact national security and financial markets.
The initiative, announced Thursday, aims to provide Wall Street trading firms and other institutions with real-time news from top Truth Social contributors, enabling them to potentially profit from subsequent market fluctuations in stocks, bonds and interest rates.
Dubbed Truth PSI, this new offering emerges amidst a series of other ventures by Trump and his family company, which critics argue exploit his public office for personal gain.
While similar paid access options exist on competing platforms, Truth PSI presents a unique aspect: Donald Trump himself is the platform’s most prominent poster and, as the biggest shareholder in the publicly traded parent company, stands to benefit directly from the service.
“He’s selling expedited, privileged access to information about what he is doing as president,” said Kathleen Clark of Washington University School of Law and an expert in government conflicts of interest rules. “It’s yet more brazen corruption, an improper exploitation of government power to enrich himself.”
The Trump family company declined to comment about whether the new feature is profiting off the presidency. Truth Social’s public parent, Trump Media & Technology, did not respond to emailed questions, including whether the president’s posts will be excluded from the offering.
A press release states it would allow traders to see “the highest-ranking Truth Social accounts” ahead of others. The president has the most followers — 12.9 million — followed by his oldest son, Don Jr. and, close behind, his son Eric.
The release did not say how much customers would be charged.
In the past few months, Trump has announced major decisions and musings on his platform including posts about the Iran war, tariffs and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown in U.S. cities. The Iran posts in particular are impactful because investors are worried that higher oil prices will continue to stoke inflation and possibly force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.
Stock in Trump Media & Technology has plunged more than 70% since the president took office last year, erasing $6 billion in shareholder wealth. Those losses, along with billions more of investor losses tied to new Trump family crypto businesses, have drawn scrutiny after Trump’s annual disclosure of his financial holdings shows he took in more than $1 billion in revenue last year in the same companies and offerings.
Conflict of interest laws would bar U.S. government officials from owning a company that profits off their office by selling access to their decisions through public posts, says Washington University’s Clark. But the president and vice-president, she notes, are excluded from the provision.
Despite that, all presidents since the law was passed decades ago have acted as if it applied — selling individual stocks, dumping business holdings or putting their financial assets in a blind trust so they wouldn’t know what was being bought and sold on their behalf while they wielded power — but Trump has refused.
Trump Media has been trying to lift its stock price recently by branching into various businesses, including crypto, financial services and even nuclear fusion. It recently replaced its longtime CEO, former Congressman Devin Nunes, with a seasoned media executive, Kevin McGurn.
In the release, McGurn described the Truth PSI move as part of a “strategy to monetize proprietary assets.” He added that he expected it to become a “meaningful, ongoing source of revenue.”
Trump Media said that it plans to start the service next month and that it has already signed up customers.
The stock rose 0.6% to $9.63 on Thursday. Before Trump took office last year, it closed at $40.
