YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought forth over the suspension of President Donald Trump’s account following the January 2021 Capitol riots. The Alphabet-owned company was among the tech companies Trump sued in July 2021, accusing them of silencing conservative viewpoints. Meta and X agreed on settlements earlier this year.
Under the YouTube settlement, $22 million will be paid on Trump’s behalf to the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit that the filing says is dedicated to the construction of a $200 million ballroom that Trump is building at the White House. Work on this facility is expected to be completed long before the end of Trump’s term in January 2029. The remaining amount will go to other plaintiffs, including the American Conservative Union, which sponsors the Conservative Political Action Conference, and U.S. author Naomi Wolf.
Trump’s account was not removed in 2021, however, it was prevented from uploading new videos. This ability was restored in 2023. YouTube did not admit to wrongdoing, and will not make any policy changes according to the settlement.
Earlier this year, X settled a similar lawsuit, agreeing to pay Trump around $10 million. Trump’s account on the platform — then known as Twitter — was suspended following the Capitol riots in January 2021. Trump responded to this by suing the company, and Jack Dorsey, who was CEO at the time, and accusing them of “censoring free speech.”
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In May 2022, Judge James Donato of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed the lawsuit, saying that Twitter did not infringe on Trump’s First Amendment rights to free speech. Elon Musk reinstated Trump’s account when he purchased Twitter, and renamed it X.
A similar lawsuit was settled with Meta. Trump signed an agreement where Meta has to pay about $25 million. From that amount, about $22 million would be used for Trump’s upcoming presidential library while the rest would cover lawyers’ fees and go to the other people involved in the case.
Trump was suspended from Meta-owned platforms Facebook and Instagram following the Capitol riots. The company had suspended Trump’s accounts, citing violations of its policies regarding incitement to violence and the risk of further harm. In January 2023, Meta reinstated Trump’s accounts after a two-year suspension. Trump had launched his own platform Truth Social following what he saw as censorship from large social media platforms.