DJT Stock Rises Premarket: Trump Media CEO Defends Truth API As 'An Obvious Place To Go'

Interim CEO Kevin McGurn said in an interview with CNBC on Monday that Truth API uses established social-media technology, making the move a natural expansion and a valid new revenue source.

• Critics argue that monetizing Truth Social’s API gives financial firms that can scrape data through algorithmic trading an unfair speed advantage. 
• However, McGurn argued that the president’s information is widely shared on the internet across social media platforms including X (formerly Twitter), Reddit, and TikTok, and is also available to retail trading platforms. 
• When asked about the Truth Social API feeds in a Fox Business interview last month, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins declined to comment. 

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (DJT) rose 0.54% in premarket trading early Tuesday. A day earlier, interim CEO Kevin McGurn defended the decision to launch a paid data feed on Truth Social that would give subscribers early access to posts for as much as $100,000 per month.

McGurn said in an interview with CNBC that Truth API uses established social-media technology that has long connected platforms with trading firms, news services and prediction markets, making it a natural expansion and a valid new source of revenue. 

“This was an obvious place to go,” he said, adding that, “We have incredible data. We have incredible information. And it was in high demand. This was demand that came to us from the market. So we wanted to make sure that we satisfy that demand in the most brightly lit way for us.”

Why Monetizing Truth Social Posts Has Stirred Controversy 

In addition to being a major shareholder in Trump Media & Technology Group, U.S. President Donald Trump often makes market-moving posts on the platform. Critics argue that monetizing Truth Social’s API gives financial firms that can scrape data through algorithmic trading an unfair speed advantage. 

Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer, told the BBC earlier this month that insider-trading laws could potentially impose “tipper-tippee” liability if government information is passed to someone who pays for it and trades on it. 

"If I have information that belongs to the United States government that I'm not allowed to trade on, and instead of trading, I simply give the information to someone else who pays me for the information and they trade and I know they're likely to trade, then I am also guilty of insider trading and so are they," he reportedly said, adding that the law applies to the president and to everyone else. 

Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff have also asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to examine the issue, though the regulator has not said whether it will investigate.

However, McGurn argued that the president’s information is widely shared on the internet across social media platforms including X (formerly Twitter), Reddit, and TikTok. 

“We give a 50 millisecond advantage in that post, but that is the internet delivery, right? So all posts go out in real time as soon as the president posts or any of our other creators post, it is public information and it goes out on the internet,” he said. 

He added that the information is sold in real time to “all of our customers,” including retail trading platforms, not just high-frequency trading platforms. 

When asked about the Truth API feeds in a Fox Business interview last month, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins declined to comment, saying that, “We’re observing what’s going on and we’ll monitor the situation.”

DJT Stock: Retail Stance

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around DJT stock was ‘bullish’ at the time of writing. 

The company’s shares have declined more than 32% this year.

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