YouTube to pay US$24.5 million to settle Trump lawsuit

An illustration photo shows the YouTube logo on a smartphone. YouTube agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump. (CFOTO/Future Publishing/Getty Images/File via CNN Newsource)

YouTube agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by U.S. President Donald Trump after he was suspended by social media platforms following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

This makes Alphabet-owned YouTube the last of the three Big Tech social media companies sued by Trump — which included Meta and then Twitter, now called X — to settle over his removal from their platforms.

YouTube will pay US$22 million to settle the claims made by Trump to the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall, which is “dedicated to restoring, preserving, and elevating the National Mall, to support the construction of the White House State Ballroom,” according to a court document.

The social media company will also pay $2.5 million to settle with other plaintiffs, such as the nonprofit American Conservative Union.

YouTube directed CNN to the court document when asked for comment.

Meta agreed to settle Trump’s lawsuit in January for $25 million. X’s settlement in February involved a payment of around $10 million, according to the New York Times.

When they suspended his accounts, the platforms said Trump’s posts about the riot risked inciting further violence. At the time, legal experts said similar suits had been dismissed because tech companies have the right to run their platforms as they see fit.

However, the settlements come as tech giants have taken a more conciliatory, if not outright supportive, approach to Trump and Republican interests since he took office in January.

After Elon Musk acquired X — then known as Twitter — in late 2022, he reinstated Trump’s account; Meta followed suit in February 2023 and YouTube the following month.

Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai all sat front and center at Trump’s inauguration, and social media platform has rolled back content moderation efforts that Republican users had likened to censorship.

Just last week, YouTube said it would reinstate some accounts banned for violating now-defunct rules meant to curb repeated posting of misinformation, including about the results of the 2020 election. In its announcement, the company said it “values conservative voices on its platform and recognizes that these creators have extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse.”