Why Trump Media's sale of fast access to market-moving social posts is controversial

When Donald Trump speaks, financial traders rank among the most attentive listeners. From trade wars to military conflicts, any utterance from the US president can jolt financial markets, prompting trading desks and automated computer systems to monitor his statements and execute trades within seconds.

To capitalize on this demand, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) has developed a service providing early, high-speed access to posts on Truth Social. While TMTG has not directly stated that the service includes the account of the president himself, his roughly 13 million followers make his posts easily among the most influential on the site. The service was anticipated to become available to institutional customers on August 1, with the Financial Times reporting that fees could reach up to $100,000 a month, though TMTG has not confirmed the figure.

Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event

TMTG expects the offering to establish a reliable new revenue stream for the currently loss-making firm. The product is primarily tailored for high-frequency trading (HFT) and algorithmic trading firms, which TMTG describes as those most impacted by the cost of informational delays. Such systems are engineered to capture tiny profits on individual transactions while generating massive returns through sheer speed and volume.

However, the initiative has triggered a wave of legal questions and ethical debates, particularly regarding whether a company where the president's family remains the majority shareholder should profit from his public statements. Silence has surrounded the client roster, with TMTG confirming registrations prior to launch but withholding exact figures. Major Wall Street firms including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citadel Securities, and Jane Street either declined to comment or did not respond when contacted by the BBC regarding their participation.

"Nobody wants to talk about this stuff."

Saluzzi

Political opposition has quickly mounted, with Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff dispatching a letter to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to question whether the Truth API breaches regulatory laws. The SEC confirmed receipt of the correspondence but declined to comment on potential investigations. Concerns over potential illegal insider trading—wherein individuals trade securities based on nonpublic information—have also been raised by critics.

In response to the Senate letter, a TMTG spokesperson asserted that Democratic senators continue to mischaracterize the Truth API either out of ideological opposition to free markets or a failure to grasp the distinction between public and nonpublic information. Meanwhile, Richard Painter, a former ethics lawyer for President George W Bush, told the BBC he believes selling official US government material prior to public release could cross into insider trading territory.

Source: BBC Business