YouTube agreed to pay President Trump a $24.5 million settlement in his lawsuit against the tech giant for banning his account in January 2021.
President Trump previously filed a lawsuit against YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook after the tech giants banned his accounts following the January 6 Capitol riot.
“We’re demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing and canceling that you know so well,” Mr. Trump said in July 2021. “I am confident that we will achieve a historic victory for American freedom and at the same time freedom of speech.”
Trump’s lawyers asked the Court to prevent the tech giants from “exercising censorship” or “editorial control” over the posts of a US president.
According to The Wall Street Journal, YouTube agreed to pay a $24.5 million settlement after Meta agreed to pay Trump $25 million and Twitter/X paid $10 million.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit that President Trump brought against the company and its chief executive over its suspension of Trump’s account after that year’s riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to court papers.
The settlement makes YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet’s Google, the final Big Tech company to settle a trio of lawsuits Trump brought against social-media platforms in the months after he left the White House. Meta Platforms agreed in January to pay $25 million, most of it to a fund for Trump’s presidential library, and X agreed to pay $10 million, much of it going directly to Trump, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.
Google executives were eager to keep their settlement smaller than the one paid by rival Meta, according to people familiar with the matter. 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.”
A further $2.5 million will go to the other plaintiffs on the case, a group that includes the American Conservative Union and writer Naomi Wolf. The settlement doesn’t mention attorney fees.
Breaking: YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle President Trump’s 2021 lawsuit over the suspension of his account https://t.co/zUeyamByuV
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 29, 2025
President Trump has also received a settlement from CBS over its decision to deceptively edit an interview with Kamala Harris.
CBS was forced to pay millions of dollars to President Trump and agreed to change its editorial policy in a settlement.
President Trump filed a $20 billion lawsuit against the network’s parent company Paramount for deceptively editing a ’60 Minutes’ interview with Kamala Harris.
Fake news 60 Minutes was caught editing Kamala’s answers to make her sound coherent and normal.
Trump will be paid $16 million up front, according to Fox News.
