SerpApi.Org
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) is urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether Truth Social’s parent company could be violating federal securities laws by selling Wall Street firms early access to President Donald Trump’s posts.
The letter marks the latest escalation in the controversy surrounding Trump Media & Technology Group’s plan to monetize the president’s Truth Social posts. The company unveiled Truth API last week, an application programming interface that provides paying clients with early access to Truth Social posts.
“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 a letter sent Monday to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins.
“Presidential communications capable of affecting stocks, bonds, oil, currencies, and other assets should not become a premium financial product that gives wealthy institutions a millisecond advantage over retail investors,” Torres wrote. “Even a brief informational edge can generate substantial profits in algorithmic markets and erode confidence in a fair and level playing field.”
Torres also asked the SEC to coordinate with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Office of Government Ethics, and other federal agencies to examine possible conflicts of interest. He requested that the SEC disclose whether it is reviewing Truth API and what safeguards, if any, are in place to detect suspicious trading tied to presidential posts.
“American markets cannot remain credible if presidential power is converted into a privately sold trading advantage,” he wrote. “This arrangement raises serious concerns about market fairness, investor protection, and public trust, and it warrants immediate Commission scrutiny.”
An SEC spokesperson declined to comment to the Washington Examiner on Torres’s request.
The letter is the latest in a growing bipartisan debate over Truth API. Last week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) argued the product amounted to “the definition of insider trading.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) also suggested the product could face regulatory scrutiny.
“My assumption is that’ll have some regulatory look — legal look,” Thune told reporters Tuesday on Capitol Hill. “My assumption is that’ll get tested somewhere. I don’t know the answer to that. It’s kind of plowing new ground, new territory.”
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Trump Media has defended the product as a standard commercial offering.
“Markets already move on Truth Social posts,” interim Chief Executive Officer Kevin McGurn said in a statement. “Truth API delivers a direct, licensed, real-time feed of the platform’s most market-moving Truths while advancing our strategy to monetize proprietary assets through a high-margin, recurring revenue stream.”
