Everything Is For Sale In The Trump White House, Even His Truth Social Posts

from the new-corruption-every-single-day. dept

Over the last few months especially, there has been renewed attention to the sheer scale of Donald Trump’s ability to profit off the presidency. The efforts to do so only become more brazen every week. Leaving aside the crypto business that he got a ton of people to fund, the free airplane from a foreign government, the “donations” for things like the east wing “renovation” (which is still somehow supposed to be funded by taxpayers), and the attempt to sue his own government for $10 billion, it feels like there is no end to the grifting.

Just recently there were reports of an insane level of market manipulation, in which Trump would buy certain stocks and then pump them up on Truth Social. That alone feels like an impeachable offense, but why stop at merely one layer of corruption when you can profit off of others getting in on the corrupt bargain? Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the company that runs Truth Social, is now going to start selling “early access” to Trump’s posts via an API.

The product, called ‘Truth API’, will deliver posts from the 10 most influential accounts to customers at a significantly faster pace than a regular push notification on the Truth Social platform, a spokesperson said.

The feed is designed for organizations “most impacted by the cost of a delay in information”, such as algorithmic trading firms, the company said in a statement. “Until now… firms that prioritize tracking influential Truth posts have relied on manual monitoring. Truth API closes the gap.”

The move is TMTG’s first step into data licensing, and opens up a new revenue stream for the company, which has faced challenges in scaling its media business amid stiff competition from larger social media firms.

I can pretty much guarantee that delivering such posts from the “10 most influential accounts” is nine accounts too many. This offering is entirely about giving high frequency trading firms that millisecond advantage to front run the market and execute trades based on Trump’s posts to try to get ahead of the chump trades from retail investors swayed by Trump.

TMTG’s CEO doesn’t even try to claim it’s anything else:

“Markets already move on Truth Social posts … As adoption grows, we expect Truth API to become a meaningful, ongoing source of revenue for the company,” TMTG’s interim CEO Kevin McGurn said.

And, yes, lots of other internet companies offer licensed API access to content, but for other reasons. The only reason anyone could possibly want this is to get a split second advantage to trade on pronouncements the President of the United States makes. The value of this offering does not grow over time. It has a clear limit: the day Trump is no longer president, the value drops back down close to nothing at all.

If there were an actual legitimate reason to offer such a service, then McGurn could have expressed it, but he just out and out admits that it’s because markets move based on Truth Social posts (he conveniently leaves out that those posts all come from a single user: the president himself, who just happens to own the platform and directly profits off of any of its success).

Jimmy Carter sold his peanut farm before taking office to avoid even any whiff of potential conflict. Donald Trump is leaning into the conflict and putting a price tag on it. He’s announcing to the world that they can get early access to pronouncements from the President of the United States… for a price. There is no world in which that should be allowed.

Filed Under: corruption, donald trump, high frequency trading, kevin mcgurn, truth api

Companies: tmtg, truth social