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Trump Media wants to charge stock traders for access to U.S. President Donald Trump’s posts on Truth Social that is a few milliseconds faster. This would allow them to potentially profit from Trump’s announcements that could influence the stock markets through their automated processing and algorithms. The plan raises concerns about insider trading, conflicts of interest, and an uneven playing field in the stock market.
According to critics, this gives Donald Trump a financial incentive to disseminate policy announcements directly through his platform, while traders can profit from them. This fits into a broader pattern in which Trump’s family is already earning substantial sums from crypto and other business activities related to his presidency. For example, it was previously reported that Trump earned $2.2 billion last year, more than half of which came from his interests in crypto companies.
“With every government decision, the interests of American society should come first; no financial interest should play a role in that. But Trump will soon have a financial incentive to implement certain policy changes and publicize them through this platform,” said Arnoud Pijls, professor of European financial supervision law at Radboud University, in an interview with De Volkskrant. “This resembles insider trading. In Europe, this would be unthinkable.”
There have been previous instances of suspicious stock market movements surrounding Trump’s statements, including trading just before an announcement about Iran and oil prices. No evidence of illegal trading has been provided, but the timing does fuel suspicion.
Trump Media is the Trump family-owned company that manages his social media platform, Truth Social. The service is expected to be available starting in August.
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