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Trump Media & Technology Group is aiming to energize growth by selling faster access to President Trump\u0027s Truth Social posts for up to $100,000 a month.CEO Kevin McGurn told investors on Monday that the company has signed up "more than 10" customers for its Truth API, or Application Programming Interface, data feed, which he said was mostly from high-frequency securities trading firms seeking an edge by potentially seeing the president\u0027s posts milliseconds before they reach the broader Truth Social audience.\u00a0Contracts for the new service generally range from $60,000 to $100,000 a month, McGurn said. The Truth API includes access to the social media network\u0027s top accounts, not just Mr. Trump\u0027s, the company has said.Rolling access to the Truth API feed could give traders and investors a small but meaningful head start in making investment calls based on Mr. Trump\u0027s posts, such as announcements on tariffs and foreign policy. That could raise ethical concerns, financial experts said.McGurn also said Trump Media is in "active conversations" with large cloud computing firms, artificial intelligence companies and news organizations about signing up for Truth API. Eventually, the company also plans to market the data feed to ordinary investors, he said."We\u0027re encouraged by the early demand for Truth API, and we look forward to rolling out the product to other sectors, including retail investors," McGurn said in a call with Wall Street analysts to discuss the company\u0027s most recent financial results.Searching for directionTrump Media & Technology Group, which has never turned a profit since its founding in 2021, has struggled to settle on a business strategy capable of delivering reliable revenue growth. Advertising revenue on the Truth Social platform \u2014 President Trump\u0027s primary social media bullhorn \u2014 fell in the second quarter, according to an Aug. 10 regulatory filing, although the company didn\u0027t provide financial details.\u00a0To jump-start growth, Trump Media has expanded into a range of new ventures, branching into financial products such as ETFs with patriotic investment themes and buying billions in cryptocurrencies to refashion itself into a crypto treasury firm. Trump Media is also merging with fusion energy company TAE Technologies, which McGurn on Monday said will provide Trump Media with "a rare chance to play a key role in securing America\u0027s energy independence."On Monday, the company\u0027s second-quarter revenue rose 89% to $1.67 million, but its losses ballooned 10-fold to $238 million due to the plunging value of its crypto holdings, according to Trump Media\u0027s latest earnings report.\u00a0The Truth API, announced in July, could boost revenue by selling what may be the company\u0027s most valuable asset: immediate, automated access to Mr. Trump\u0027s public statements. Truth Social continues to publish Mr. Trump\u0027s posts, and those of other top users, so that they are available to everyone at the same time.\u00a0But the API delivers the information directly to customers\u0027 computers, potentially allowing them to detect the posts before a human user might notice them on their feed.\u00a0Trump Media shares \u2014 which trade under the ticker DJT, the same as the president\u0027s initials \u2014 slipped almost 6% on Tuesday. The stock has lost about 49% of its value over the past year, while the S&P 500 has gained 21%.Ethical concernsThe Truth Social API service is drawing scrutiny from ethics experts and Democratic lawmakers over whether investors should be able to pay a company partly owned by the president for faster access to his public statements.Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, has introduced a bill that would ban social media companies from selling special access to government employees\u0027 accounts that share market-moving information.\u00a0Mr. Trump frequently turns to Truth Social for major announcements, including the introduction of new tariffs and progress in diplomatic talks with Iran and other nations. The president has also been a driver of the market\u0027s best and worst five days since his return to office, CNBC reported in May, citing research from Fundstrat.Fundstrat, which didn\u0027t respond to requests for comment, found that the S&P 500\u0027s biggest single-day jump last year came on April 9, 2025, when the president announced he would pause his tariffs, sending the index soaring 9%.\u00a0On Monday\u0027s investor call, McGurn defended the Truth Social API service by noting that it only provides access to public posts, albeit "milliseconds" faster. "Our customers will get published in publicly available posts fractionally faster," he said. He called the ethical criticisms "misguided."But "milliseconds make a difference" for high-frequency traders, Richard Painter, a corporate and securities law professor at the University of Minnesota who served as the chief ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, told CBS News.\u00a0High-frequency trading firms could face particular legal risk because their automated systems can execute trades in fractions of a second, Painter pointed out. Although Mr. Trump\u0027s posts are publicly available when the API sends them to customers, Painter said that the source of government information, as well as customers who paid for access, are legally required to wait to trade on that info until the data has had time to be reflected in market prices, or else risk violating insider-trading laws.Trump Media dismissed such concerns."Critics continue to mischaracterize Truth API either out of ideological opposition to free markets or a failure to grasp the distinction between public and nonpublic information," a Trump Media spokesperson told CBS News.Mr. Trump\u0027s stakeMr. Trump owns 41% of the media company\u0027s shares, worth about $1 billion, according to data from financial services firm FactSet. While he doesn\u0027t have a manageme...
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