Truth Social launches real-time data interface, sells access to market-impact posts to Wall Street
Wall Street banks and trading firms will receive comments from President Donald Trump in milliseconds, the parent company of Truth Social announced on Thursday a new service for institutional paying clients. Trump Media & Technology Group will launch an authorized data source called the "Truth API" to provide paying customers with the "fastest access" to posts from the platform's ten most influential accounts. The Sarasota, Florida-based company's largest shareholder is the president's family. According to the statement, the company has signed up customers ahead of the expected launch of the new service on August 1. APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are a common offering of other social media platforms like X and Reddit. Hedge funds and other Wall Street firms pay to buy these data sources to capture potentially market-moving user posts before the information is released publicly. Kevin McGahn, interim CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group, said in a statement: "The market has been shaken by posts from Truth Social. The Truth API provides a direct, authorized, real-time data stream of the platform's most market-impact posts." Although the announcement did not explicitly mention the president, he is undoubtedly the most popular account on Truth Social, with 12.9 million followers. Other members of the administration with large followings and frequent postings include Vice President J.D. Vance, FBI Director Kash Patel and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Of course, this information has been available in other ways before, albeit more clumsily and probably slower. Multiple companies have been scraping the information for months, which McGurn said violated the company's terms of service. "We're going to create a lot of barriers for people who don't work with us directly," he told Axios. Truth Social launched in 2022, and the president's use of the platform has been under scrutiny during his second term. Trump's nightly posting sprees sometimes include dozens of posts in a matter of hours. Today, that information reaches Wall Street almost instantly. As Virginia Kantor, an ethics attorney for the nonprofit Defenders of Democracy Fund, who has criticized the Trump administration, put it, Truth Social has “become the de facto presidential press room.” Truth Social is often Trump's first platform to announce key geopolitical decisions, including decisions about the war with Iran or import taxes. In addition, he frequently named companies and commented on stock market performance. A CNN investigation found that US President Trump recommended more than 20 companies on his Truth Social account - including Nvidia, U.S. Steel, — and just days later he bought shares in those companies. Truth Social aims to "be a safe haven for free speech amid increasing scrutiny from big tech companies," but it has so far failed to lure users away from other social media platforms, with traffic only a fraction of its competitors. According to Semrush data, Facebook led traffic in June with more than 9 billion visits, while Reddit and X were about 5 billion and 4 billion respectively. In comparison, Truth Social only received 10.5 million visits in June, a 13% decrease from May. Truth Media has struggled since going public in 2021, with its stock price down more than 90% from its all-time high. By selling faster access to posts by the president and other influential accounts, the company is trying to build new recurring revenue streams. "We expect Truth API to become a meaningful and ongoing revenue stream for the company, creating lasting value for shareholders," McGurn said.