When Donald Trump speaks, financial traders are among the keenest listeners. From trade wars to military conflicts, almost anything the US president says can move markets. Trump has also repeatedly faced accusations of market manipulation.
Now, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) wants to monetise this phenomenon. The company has launched a service called Truth API at the beginning of this month that gives traders faster access to posts from influential Truth Social users. And it already has more than 10 customers.
Speaking about the service, the company’s interim CEO, Kevin McGurn, said in a statement. “Our new Truth API product is already generating revenue, with more than ten customer agreements signed to date.” Currently, the company is considering charging up to $100,000 per month for the Truth API product.
The new service is “expected to provide the company with a new revenue stream,” it said in its earnings statement on Monday.
The firm believes the service will become a “meaningful” and “durable” source of revenue, in addition to the company’s broader media strategy, which includes advertising and digital assets, McGurn said.
TMTG hasn’t confirmed whether Trump’s account is included in the service, but with 13 million followers, his posts would likely be among Truth Social’s most market-moving.
Is that even legal?
The move has raised legal and ethical concerns about whether Trump Media should be able to profit from the President’s own market-moving statements, particularly given that his family remains the company’s majority shareholder.
Richard Painter, former chief ethics lawyer to President George W Bush, told the BBC that even if Trump does not trade on US government information, there was the so-called “tipper-tippee liability” under insider trading laws.
“If I have information that belongs to the United States government that I’m not allowed to trade on, and instead of trading, I simply give the information to someone else who pays me for the information, and they trade, and I know they’re likely to trade, then I am also guilty of insider trading and so are they,” Painter says.
Noting that this law also applies to the president, he said he would threaten to resign if he were the SEC commissioner, unless they decided to stop this plan.
TMTG quarterly loss widens to $238 million
TMTG reported a wider second-quarter loss on Monday, largely due to unrealised losses tied to its cryptocurrency assets.
Its second-quarter net loss jumped to $238.1 million from about $20 million a year earlier, the company said in a statement.
Digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, came under pressure during the April-to-June quarter as investors shunned riskier assets amid uncertainty over U.S. interest rates, geopolitical tensions and persistent outflows from crypto investment products.
