Imagine you’re playing poker, and one player gets to peek at the deck a split second before every hand. Would you keep sitting at that table?
That’s roughly the game Wall Street’s being invited into right now. And the house — the one handing out the peek — is the president of the United States.
I spent a decade on Wall Street before I started writing about money for a living. I’ve seen plenty of setups that favor insiders.
This one’s bolder than most because the edge is being sold by the guy who runs the country.
On Aug. 1, Trump Media & Technology Group — the company behind Truth Social — launched a service called Truth API that hands trading firms the president’s posts milliseconds before the rest of us, for up to $100,000 a month.
And Trump doesn’t use Truth Social to post cat pictures. He announces tariffs, military moves and other market-moving decisions there. His words swing stocks, oil and bonds — sometimes by trillions.
1. Here’s what Wall Street is actually buying
Truth API is a high-speed data feed. Subscribers — mostly high-frequency trading firms — get new posts from the platform’s biggest accounts, including Trump’s, a fraction of a second before everyone else.
More than 10 firms have already signed up, paying between $60,000 and $100,000 a month. This isn’t a rumor. The company brags about it on earnings calls.
2. Why a few milliseconds is worth millions
Sounds trivial, right? It isn’t.
In high-frequency trading, a head start measured in milliseconds can be worth a fortune. NPR’s Bobby Allyn said that tiny gap could easily mean tens of millions of dollars. Algorithms fire off thousands of orders before you’ve finished reading the headline.
3. This isn’t your average data feed — the president makes the news
Bloomberg and Reuters sell fast feeds too. So what’s the difference? Simple: They report the news. Trump makes it.
When he posts a tariff threat or a cease-fire, markets lurch in real time. In April, a single Trump post about pausing strikes on Iran helped trigger a $1.5 trillion stock market rally, according to Fortune. Now imagine seeing that post first.
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4. The president pockets the profits
Here’s the part that should make your jaw drop. Trump is Trump Media’s largest shareholder, with a 41.3% stake worth roughly $950 million, held through a trust his son Don Jr. oversees.
So every firm buying early access is, in effect, cutting the president a check. At current sign-ups, that’s up to $12 million a year — for selling a head start on his own official words.
5. Experts keep using two words: insider trading
“This is insider trading by definition,” NYU economist Gian Luca Clementi told Fortune.
He’s not alone. A former top SEC official, Boston College professor Renée Jones, said that monetizing the posts looks like misappropriating information and breaching a duty of trust. Another former SEC lawyer, Tyler Gellasch, warned that when a market looks like this, “it looks rigged.”
6. The lawsuits and investigations are stacking up
On Wednesday, The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation sued Trump and several White House officials in Manhattan federal court, seeking to shut the service down. The complaint calls the arrangement “profoundly corrupt” and argues it’s unconstitutional.
Lawmakers are circling too. Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres has petitioned the SEC to investigate, and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff have asked the agency to look at whether the service undermines market integrity.
Trump Media isn’t blinking. Interim CEO Kevin McGurn frames Truth API as a routine licensed data product, insisting that “this is no different” from what other tech and media firms sell. A company spokesperson says the posts are public information and accuses critics of trying to weaponize the courts.
What this means for your money
Here’s what bugs me. Whether or not a court ends up calling this illegal, it tells you something ugly about the game you’re in.
The stock market is supposed to run on a level field. Everybody gets the news at the same moment. That’s the whole deal.
This punches a hole in that deal — and slaps a price tag on the hole. A hundred grand a month, and the gap is yours.
You and I aren’t buying Truth API. Neither is your 401(k).
So what do you do? The boring thing that’s always worked. Don’t try to out-trade the machines — you’ll lose. Buy solid investments, hold them for years, and tune out the noise. Including the noise on Truth Social.
The fast money will always find an edge somewhere. Your edge is time and patience. And nobody can sell that one out from under you.