SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
President Trump's social media platform, Truth Social, has begun to sell a controversial new service today. For a fee of up to $100,000 a month, Truth Social is offering early access to posts from prominent users, including the president, who uses his post to make announcements about the economy and global affairs. NPR correspondent Bobby Allyn joins us. Bobby, thanks so much for being with us.
BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: Hey, Scott.
SIMON: First, give us just some of the details about what the service is.
ALLYN: Sure. Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, is calling this Truth API, and it's being offered to banks and other institutional investors as a way to get a jump on what Trump and others post on Truth Social. Now, Trump's announcements about government policy, conflicts in the Middle East and other developments can send company share prices up or down. So, you know, getting Trump's post, even a few moments faster, could make a difference with stock trading. And I got to say, Scott, this is just a very unusual product for a president to be selling his social media posts, and it's led to a fair amount of concern in Washington and on Wall Street.
SIMON: What are those concerns?
ALLYN: Yeah. I talked to lawyers who formerly worked at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and they said this service looks like it violates insider trading laws against misusing public information to give certain investors an upper hand. Say the president posts about the Strait of Hormuz, and a trader uses that to make money on oil futures. Democrats, too, have taken notice. They've been criticizing this. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff wrote a letter to the SEC demanding an investigation.
SIMON: Are Wall Street traders biting?
ALLYN: You know, this service is being pitched to big banks and institutions who are talking about a price tag of over a million dollars a year. This isn't cheap. I reached out to a dozen brokers, hedge fund managers and other investors, and nearly all of them declined to be interviewed. But one high-profile Wall Street executive did talk to me on the condition that he not be named since this person feared retaliation from the Trump administration, and this person called the service, quote, "insane" and said, there's no way, quote, "myself and 200 of my friends in finance will get anywhere near this service since in another administration it would be viewed as criminal."
SIMON: How does Trump's media company respond to these criticisms?
ALLYN: Yeah. A spokeswoman for Trump's media company said Truth API gives customers faster access to public information and said that critics, including law professors and democrats have invented new theories of insider trading to attack the president.
SIMON: Bobby, how does this Truth Social service fit into the larger picture of how the president's been able to profit during his time in office?
ALLYN: Yeah. You know, recent government disclosures show how Trump earned more than $2 billion last year, mostly from cryptocurrency ventures. And according to legal scholars and historians, that scale of profit while being in the White House is record-breaking, and he has been sharply criticized for, whether it's his Trump meme coin or visits to Mar-a-Lago and his golf courses or this latest Truth Social offering, the president is just finding new and unusual ways of growing his family's wealth while governing the country.
Now, in response, a spokeswoman for Trump's media company said, quote, "certain politicians accuse us of anti-free-market behavior while pressuring businesses into boycotting a product, all in a coordinated effort to harm a publicly traded company." So, Scott, for now, all this pushback isn't keeping the Trump Media & Technology Group from shopping around its latest service.
SIMON: NPR correspondent Bobby Allyn. Thanks so much.
ALLYN: Thanks, Scott.
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