A U.S. lawmaker has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate whether Truth Social’s plan to sell real-time access to President Donald Trump’s social media posts to institutional investors could violate federal securities laws.
According to a report, Representative Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from New York, sent a letter to SEC Chair Paul Atkins urging the regulator to review the product before its planned August 1 launch.
Torres said giving paying institutional clients faster access to presidential posts that can influence financial markets may raise concerns around investor protection, market fairness, and potential market manipulation.
Truth API under scrutiny
The request centers on Truth API, a new data product from Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the parent company of Truth Social. The service is designed to provide subscribers with real-time access to publicly available posts from the platform’s 10 most-trending accounts.
Reuters previously reported that TMTG has pitched the service to financial firms with licensing fees of up to $100,000 per month. According to interim CEO Kevin McGurn, the API could later expand to include additional accounts for customers willing to pay higher fees.
Torres argued that the product goes beyond a standard social media data licensing business because the sitting U.S. president substantially owns the company through a revocable trust.
“There is a fundamental difference between a social media platform licensing ordinary data and a company substantially owned by the sitting President selling sophisticated traders faster access to his market-moving policy announcements,” Torres wrote in the letter.
Concerns over market fairness
The New York congressman warned that even a slight informational advantage could allow algorithmic traders to profit ahead of retail investors when presidential posts affect markets such as stocks, bonds, commodities or currencies.
He urged the SEC to determine whether Truth API creates risks under securities laws and asked the agency to coordinate with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Office of Government Ethics and other federal agencies to examine any potential conflicts of interest.
Torres also requested that the SEC disclose whether it is already reviewing the product and explain what safeguards, if any, will be used to monitor suspicious trading activity surrounding presidential social media posts.
Trump Media rejected suggestions that the service provides privileged information. A company spokesperson said Truth API simply offers customers “the fastest way to ingest publicly available Truth Social data,” emphasizing that the information itself remains publicly accessible. The company plans to launch the service on August 1.
Political and regulatory attention builds
Torres’ request follows growing political scrutiny over the planned data service. Last week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called Truth API “the definition of insider trading,” although no regulator has made such a determination.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune also suggested the product is likely to receive legal and regulatory review, describing it as “new territory” that will probably be tested.
The SEC has previously examined matters involving Trump Media, including its merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Digital World Acquisition Corp., which settled with the agency in 2023. Whether SEC Chair Paul Atkins or CFTC officials elect to issue guidance or open a formal inquiry prior to the August 1 launch date remains the key focus for market participants.
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