Donald Trump's social media company has discussed charging traders and investors as much as $100,000 a month for faster access to the US president's posts on his Truth Social platform, according to a report by the Financial Times.
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Trump Media & Technology Group has allegedly quoted the six-figure monthly sum in talks with prospective buyers of the "Truth API" data service.
Proprietary trading firms and hedge funds pay huge amounts for ultrafast data feeds because every millisecond counts when reacting to market-moving news. Trump often makes major announcements on Truth Social that trigger huge fluctuations across global markets.
"People will pay because they have to," an executive at a hedge fund told the FT. "If you're behind on that news, you'll get crushed."
Trump's posts move markets
Just before the Trump administration paused a number of tariffs last year, Trump posted on Truth Social that it was a "great time to buy." The S&P 500 rallied 9.5 per cent shortly after.
He has also backed specific stocks, complimenting companies such as Nvidia and Apple and helped their share prices. More recently, after the outbreak of the war with Iran, Trump posted on March 23 that there had been "very good and productive conversations with Iran," sending oil prices falling sharply.
Wall Street backlash
The announcement of the API product sparked a backlash on Wall Street as traders and investors were not in favour of having to pay a company tied to the president for market-moving information.
Social media platforms such as X also offer data feeds to algorithmic traders through financial terminals such as Bloomberg. TMTG expects the feed to provide coverage 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The general public would not notice the difference in speed between Truth API and updates on Truth Social itself because Truth API would give an advantage of "milliseconds" to customers of the feed.
"Milliseconds is a big deal in this world, high-frequency trading firms and systematic quant hedge funds would definitely want this product," the chief executive of a US market infrastructure company told the FT.
