Trump Scores $22M Payout After YouTube Settles Lawsuit Over Account Suspension
President Donald Trump has secured another major victory against Big Tech. YouTube has agreed to a $24.5 million settlement over Trump’s lawsuit challenging the suspension of his account in 2021.
Most of the payout will go toward building a new White House ballroom. According to court filings, $22 million will be directed to the Trust for the National Mall, which is working with the Trump administration to construct the White House State Ballroom. The remaining $2.5 million will be split among other plaintiffs in the case, including the American Conservative Union.
YouTube, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, suspended Trump’s channel in January 2021 after the events at the Capitol, claiming his content violated policies on “incitement to violence.” The suspension carried into the early days of President Trump’s return to private life. The company reinstated his account in 2023 and has now become the last of the major tech platforms to settle with him.
The deal follows similar settlements between Trump and other social media giants. In January, Meta (owner of Facebook and Instagram) agreed to pay $25 million, most of which will fund Trump’s presidential library in Miami. In February, X (formerly Twitter) settled with Trump for $10 million.
X reinstated Trump’s account almost immediately after Elon Musk took control of the platform in 2022. Meta waited until February 2023 before restoring his access. YouTube restored Trump’s account last year, but only now has resolved the lawsuit.
All three cases were pursued by Trump attorney John Coale, who said the settlements would have been impossible without Trump’s 2024 comeback. “If he had not been re-elected, we would have been in court for 1,000 years,” Coale told The Wall Street Journal. “It was his re-election that made the difference.”
The string of legal victories reflects Trump’s growing influence in Silicon Valley, an area that once aligned almost entirely against him. During his second inauguration, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai joined Elon Musk in choice seats as honored guests.
With the legal battles behind him, Trump now boasts that every major Big Tech platform — Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X — has not only reinstated his accounts but has also been forced to pay up in multimillion-dollar settlements.