YouTube to pay Trump $24.5M for suspending account after Capitol riot

[Trump Meets With Foreign Dignitaries On Sidelines Of UNGA]

YouTube (NASDAQ:GOOG [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/GOOG]) (NASDAQ:GOOGL [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/GOOGL]) has agreed to a $24.5M settlement to resolve a 2021 lawsuit filed by President Trump against the video streaming platform after his account was suspended following the January 6 Capitol riot, _The Wall Street Journal _reported Monday, citing court papers.

YouTube suspended Trump’s channel after the riot, saying it had removed videos that violated its policies against content that could incite violence. The platform reinstated his channel in March 2023.

The settlement makes YouTube, 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, the report said.

In January, Meta Platforms (META [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/META]) agreed to pay $25M, most of it to a fund for Trump’s presidential library, and X agreed to pay $10M, much of it going directly to Trump, _The Wall Street Journal _previously reported.

Sources told _WSJ_ that Google executives were eager to keep their settlement amount lower than what Meta paid.

Trump’s share of the settlement is $22M, which will go to the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall. Funds from that will be used for the construction of a Mar-a-Lago-style ballroom Trump is building [https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-ballroom-white-house-1db772f4?mod=article_inline]at the White House, the report said, citing the court documents.

Trump's White House ballroom is expected to cost $200M, which he said would be funded by donations from him and "other patriot donors."

The report said the remaining $2.5M will go to the other plaintiffs in the case, a group that includes the American Conservative Union and writer Naomi Wolf. The settlement doesn’t mention attorney fees.Since reelection, Trump has raked in more than $80M in settlements stemming from lawsuits he has brought against Big Tech and media companies.

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