President Trump won a $24.5 million settlement from YouTube after they censored and shut down his account following the J6 riot at the Capitol building.
Most of the money will go into a trust which will help pay for the new ballroom in the White House that President Trump planned.
When YouTube, Meta, and X suspended his accounts, the platforms said Trump’s posts about the riot risked inciting further violence. At the time, legal experts said similar suits had been dismissed because tech companies have the right to run their platforms as they see fit.
However, according to CNN, the settlements come as tech giants have taken a more conciliatory, if not outright supportive, approach to Trump and Republican interests since he took office in January.
The lawsuit is the last of the three Big Tech companies Trump sued. Meta agreed to pay $25 million, most of which goes to Trump’s presidential library, and X paid $10 million which mostly went directly to Trump.
Google executives were eager to keep their settlement smaller than the one paid by rival Meta, according to people familiar with the matter, said the WSJ. Trump’s share of the settlement—$22 million—will go to the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall, earmarked for the construction of a Mar-a-Lago-style ballroom Trump is building at the White House, according to the court documents. The White House has said the ballroom, expected to cost $200 million, would be funded by donations from Trump and “other patriot donors.”
The remaining $2.5 million will go to co-plaintiffs, including the American Conservative Union, Andrew Baggiani, Austen Fletcher, Maryse Veronica Jean-Louis, Frank Valentine, Kelly Victory, and Naomi Wolf.
