AP News54%
Paying for early access to Trump's Truth Social could raise big money and major ethical issues 73%
By BERNARD CONDON0%
7/17/2026, 9:40:16 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 26 faulty reasoning types, including Hasty Generalization, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Status Quo Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 25.9% saturation with 226 hits. Analysis detected 1,515 faulty-reasoning hits from 872 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 65.9% and a BS Rank of 73% (4,970 of 18,004 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 72.40% of the article peer group.
NEW YORK (AP) — America’s first billionaire president may soon be profiting from a new line of business tied to his office: charging access for a first peek at certain posts on his Truth Social platform.
Donald Trump’s struggling media company plans to sell Wall Street traders the chance to see posts from “highest-ranking” accounts — including possibly his own — milliseconds before others.
That could mean big money for them, and Trump.
Trump’s posts are often important enough to rattle financial markets, sending prices soaring and plunging within seconds.
Until this moment, presidential policy announcements were considered sort of public property that should be free and available to all at the same time.
The president has the most followers on Truth Social — 12.9 million — so presumably will be included in the mix of high-ranking accounts.
Truth Social’s public parent, Trump Media & Technology, did not respond to emailed questions, including whether Trump’s posts will be excluded from the offering, but the planned service is attracting plenty of attention — and not just from traders.
“It’s odious, selling access to highest bidders on Wall Street,” said Dylan Hedler-Gaudette, an expert on federal ethic rules at watchdog Project on Government Oversight.
“Everything he says has market implications.”
How the new business hopes to make money
Called Truth PSI, the service announced in a short press release Thursday would allow Wall Street trading firms and institutions to see certain posts earlier than other users so they could profit off subsequent moves in stocks, bonds and interest rates.
The Trump Media release did not give any sense of the size of the new business but quotes CEO Kevin McGurn as saying he expects it to become a “meaningful” source of revenue as part of a strategy to “monetize proprietary assets.”
The company added that it expects to launch the service next month.
His posts are often important enough to rattle financial markets, sending prices soaring and plunging within seconds.
Until this moment, presidential policy announcements were considered sort of public property that should be free and available to all at the same time.
The customers that Truth Social is targeting are high frequency traders who jump ahead of others in reacting to news to buy and sell bonds and other financial instruments.
And a few thousands of a second often spells the difference between profits and losses.
The law doesn’t bar Trump from doing this
The service is similar to others at rival social media firms but with a key difference: It’s the president posting.
But there appears to be nothing to stop Trump from doing this, at least legally.
Conflict of interest laws would bar U.S. government officials from owning a company that profits off their office by selling access to their decisions through public posts, says Washington University’s Clark.
But the president and vice president, she notes, are excluded from the provision.
Despite that, all presidents since the law was passed decades ago have acted as if it applied — selling individual stocks, dumping business holdings or putting their financial assets in a blind trust so they wouldn’t know what was being bought and sold on their behalf while they wielded power — but Trump has refused.
No response from the White House, or his businesses
The White House referred questions, including those about the president profiting off its office, to the company that owns Truth Social.
Several messages sent to that company, Trump Media & Technology, have not been returned.
And Trump’s own family company, the Trump Organization, declined to comment.
Trump himself has repeatedly denied that there any conflicts between his obligation to act in the public interest and the opportunity to make money off the presidency.
The White House has previously said Trump only does what is good for the country and is not involved in his family business.
His Iran war posts are must reading for oil traders, too
Trump has announced major decisions and musings about other topics, including staff changes, immigration crackdowns, and matters of war and peace in Ukraine and Iran.
“IT’S LIBERATION DAY IN AMERICA,” he posted on June 24 last year about a short-lived Iran deal, sending oil prices plunging instantly.
Stocks soared 9.5% that day, adding $4 trillion to investor wealth as measured by the S&P 500 index.
“It’s yet more brazen corruption,” said Kathleen Clark of Washington University School of Law and an expert in government ethics rules.
“Trump can line his pockets by selling access.”
Trump Media needs the help
The new service is the latest in a series of moves to try to revive the fortunes of Trump Media whose stock has plunged more than 70% since the president took office last year
The company has been diversifying into various businesses — crypto, financial services and nuclear fusion — but all to no avail.
It recently replaced its longtime CEO, former Congressman Devin Nunes, with McGurn — but the stock kept sinking anyway.
The stock rose 0.6% on the news Thursday, and up by half that amount the next day at $9.66.
Before Trump took office last year, it closed at $40.
Analysis
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