Trump's words can move billions. Now his company is selling a head start

Donald Trump's media company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), which operates the Truth Social platform, has launched a new premium data service called the Truth Social API. This service promises subscribers access to posts from selected high-profile accounts, including Trump's own, within "milliseconds" of their release.

The subscription costs range from $60,000 to $100,000 per month, and according to Reuters, several trading firms have already signed up. This move has ignited legal and ethical debates, particularly concerning the appropriateness of a company largely owned by the sitting U.S. president generating revenue by selling expedited access to his market-moving statements.

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The only groups that are going to afford to subscribe to that service, and get a genuine advantage out of it, are high-frequency traders.

Associate Professor Stephen Harrington from QUT's Digital Media Research Centre highlights that for modern financial markets, which increasingly operate at computer speeds, even a few milliseconds of early access can be significant. He notes that high-frequency trading (HFT) firms, which use algorithms to execute trades in fractions of a second, are the primary beneficiaries of such a service. For these firms, a substantial monthly fee is considered a justifiable business expense to gain even a slight advantage.

Questions also linger about Trump's personal financial benefit. His family holds controlling shares in TMTG through a trust, potentially allowing him to profit from increased company revenue. Despite Trump's continued use of the platform for major policy announcements, TMTG has reported substantial losses, leading some, like Dr. Harrington, to describe Truth Social as "essentially a scam."

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Truth Social is essentially a scam.