President Trump’s social media company has a new business venture: selling faster access to the president’s posts.
Trump Media & Technology Group said Thursday that it planned to sell a real-time feed of its influential Truth Social posts starting next month, replacing the need for users to monitor the platform manually.
The product, Truth API, is geared toward algorithmic trading firms for which an edge of mere milliseconds in access to information can be extremely valuable. The service already has customers lined up, Trump Media said in a news release that did not identify those buyers by name.
The main attraction would be Mr. Trump’s posts, which continue to be the primary draw for Truth Social, a platform that otherwise has struggled to gain traction. The president is the biggest shareholder in the platform’s unprofitable parent company, Trump Media, with a stake that is held in a trust managed by his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. That stake was worth more than $1 billion at Thursday’s market close.
Kevin McGurn, Trump Media’s interim chief executive, said in a statement that he expected the product to “become a meaningful, ongoing source of revenue for the company, creating lasting value for shareholders.” Other companies offer similar services, including the social media platform X.
A spokeswoman for Trump Media did not respond to questions, including how much Truth API would cost.
There is little doubt that there will be appetite for faster access to Mr. Trump’s posts, said Tyler Gellasch, a former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer who runs the Healthy Markets Association, a financial industry nonprofit. What is less clear are the rules around charging for faster access to statements from a government official, in this case the president.
“The question really becomes when it’s a government official of any type, can they be monetizing that value themselves?” Mr. Gellasch said.
Truth Media has taken steps recently to diversify into a variety of new businesses, including streaming and cryptocurrency. The company also agreed last year to merge with a nuclear fusion company, a deal that would put the president’s company in competition with other developers in an energy sector that his administration is both supporting and regulating.
Matthew Goldstein contributed reporting.