YouTube recently agreed to pay a $24.5 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit that President Donald Trump and several others brought after the platform suspended his account following the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots.
The Wall Street Journal reported that YouTube had removed Trump’s channel on the grounds that content that could incite violence must be censored. Trump sued the platform and its chief executive in 2021. Though YouTube reinstated his channel in 2023, the lawsuit continued.
According to the Journal, Trump will receive $22 million of the settlement, with the rest of the money going to the remaining plaintiffs, which including the American Conservative Union and author Naomi Wolf. The $22 million has been designated for funding the ballroom Trump is building at the White House, which is being funded from donations from the president himself and other supporters.
Since his reelection in November 2024, Trump has received more than $80 million in settlements from Meta, X, and other media and tech companies, the Journal reported. Meta paid Trump $25 million, while X paid $10 million.
Though judges had stayed or dismissed the various lawsuits at different times, Trump’s lawyers fought to keep the cases going. One of Trump’s lawyers, John Coale, said that Trump’s reelection “made the difference” in obtaining the settlements.
The Journal added that legal experts surmise the companies are settling with Trump out of a desire to end the conflict rather than acting in response to a legitimate legal challenge.
“There is a reason to settle, but it has little to do with the law,” Mark Graber, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Carey School of Law, said according to the Journal. “The present Supreme Court doctrine is very clear that private companies need not give anyone a right of access.”
He later added, “If you’re Meta or Google, $25 million is lunch money. It is probably worth $25 million in lunch money to make this go away.”
According to the Journal, Trump also treated the lawsuits as a matter of business rather than a significant legal procedure. Coale said that Trump’s reaction to the settlement was “This is great, on to the next thing.”
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