A lawsuit has been filed against President Donald Trump over Truth API, a subscription service charging up to $100,000 per month for low-latency access to Truth Social posts from top accounts. The complaint, filed on August 12 in federal court in Manhattan, alleges the arrangement is “extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional,” arguing that the First Amendment guarantees equal access to presidential announcements. The service launched August 1, targeting high-frequency trading firms and prediction markets, while Trump Media terminated a venture with Crypto.com on August 7, causing Cronos (CRO) to fall below $0.05. The lawsuit seeks to stop the program.
US President Donald Trump was sued on August 12 in federal court in Manhattan over Truth API, the Truth Social feed that delivers his posts to paying subscribers for as much as $100,000 a month. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed the complaint alongside Yale Law School’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, the Public Integrity Project, and Altshuler Berzon LLP.
It calls the arrangement “extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional,” argues that the First Amendment guarantees equal access to presidential announcements and that the Fifth Amendment bars charging unreasonable sums for them. The complaint asks the court to stop the program.
Trump Media launched Truth API on August 1 as a business-to-business subscription carrying low-latency access to posts from the ten most-followed Truth Social accounts, among them @realDonaldTrump, @WhiteHouse, and Vice President JD Vance. Access costs $100,000 per month, or $60,000 for customers who commit to three years.
More than ten customers have signed, interim CEO Kevin McGurn said in the company’s second-quarter release. Direct buyers are primarily high-frequency trading firms that ingest the posts to inform algorithmic trading, McGurn told Axios in an interview. He said the company would also disrupt scrapers that collect the same posts for free. “We’re going to create a lot of friction for those folks that aren’t coming to us directly,” McGurn stated.
McGurn said during the earnings call that Trump Media is evaluating licensing the feed to prediction market operators and is weighing deals with large language model developers. The complaint quotes those remarks, describing the prediction market plan as one that would facilitate betting on the president’s announcements.
Trump Media terminated its Trump Media Group CRO Strategy venture with Crypto.com on August 7, and Cronos (CRO) fell under $0.05, its lowest price since October 2023. Both companies now plan a marketing agreement putting Crypto.com’s prediction markets in front of Truth Social users, replacing the embedded integration announced in October 2025 that lifted CRO 10% in an hour. McGurn said the sector is already crowded with established companies, and Intercontinental Exchange has committed around $2 billion to Polymarket.
