On Monday, September 29th, court documents revealed that YouTube, owned by Alphabet, has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle the lawsuit filed by former President Donald Trump over the suspension of his account following the January 6th Capitol riot in 2021. This settlement marks the resolution of all legal disputes between the three major tech companies and Trump.
According to the court documents, $22 million of the settlement amount has been designated by Trump to be donated to the Trust for the National Mall to support the construction of the White House State Ballroom. The estimated total cost of this construction project is $200 million and is expected to be completed before the end of Trump’s four-year term.
Trump has mentioned the construction of this new ballroom on several occasions recently, stating that he will assist in covering some of the costs, along with contributions from “other patriotic donors.”
The remaining $2.5 million will be paid to other plaintiffs in the case, including the American Conservative Union, which hosts the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), and American author Naomi Wolf.
Alphabet becomes the third major tech company to settle with Trump, bringing an end to a legal dispute that has lasted for over four years.
After the end of his first presidential term in January 2021, Trump filed lawsuits against these companies, accusing them of unfairly suppressing his voice. Similar lawsuits were also filed against Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and Twitter (before it was acquired by billionaire Elon Musk and rebranded as X in 2022).
Initially, some legal experts doubted Trump’s chances of winning these lawsuits when they were first filed. However, earlier this year, Meta agreed to pay around $25 million to settle, with $22 million designated for the Trump Presidential Library Fund, while X settled for around $10 million.
It is worth noting that according to the court documents, YouTube does not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement and will not change its products or policies.
Trump’s YouTube account was suspended in 2021, prohibiting him from uploading new videos, but it was reinstated in 2023.
Alphabet declined to comment on the reasons for the settlement.