$100,000 per month to read Trump 50 ms before everyone else: Bloomberg and two HFT traders sign

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First, the principle. Trading software reads information and places an order in a few thousandths of a second. On the other hand, a human who refreshes the Truth Social application takes several seconds to see the president's message. Trump Media unveiled the Truth API on July 16, 2026 and introduced it to trading companies. The service then opened to business customers in August. Its interim general manager, Kevin McGurn, then promised a flow much faster than scraping the site.

Reuters reports, from sources familiar with the matter, that Bloomberg, Jump Trading and Susquehanna are among the subscribers. The latter two houses are specialists in high-frequency trading, or HFT. These automated strategies exploit price gaps for a few milliseconds. Furthermore, Trump Media claimed as early as August to have signed more than ten contracts, billed between $60,000 and $100,000 per month. The company did not name any customers, and Reuters could not confirm the figure. Finally, all three companies declined to comment.

The seller of the information and its author are in fact almost the same person. The Trump family trust owns 41% of Trump Media, and Donald Trump is the sole beneficiary. This is according to documents filed with the SEC and cited by Reuters. Donald Trump Jr. is the trustee, with sole voting and investment power. However, the White House assures via its spokesperson Davis Ingle that neither the president nor his family directly decides on investments. According to him, “President Trump only acts in the interest of the American public.”

However, the stock market does not follow. Trump Media stock has lost more than 50% since January 1. Its capitalization reached around $8 billion at the time of the IPO in March 2024. It only weighs $1.8 billion today. Additionally, the company has accumulated $1.76 billion in losses since 2024, including non-cash charges.

There is no shortage of messages that move the markets. Thus, oil futures fell in April 2026 after the announcement of a ceasefire in Iran on Truth Social. Reuters itself cites this case. On October 8 at 12:17 p.m. New York time, another message ruled out any strike against Iran before the November 3 midterm elections. WTI then fell from 93.20 to 90.70 dollars. Bitcoin then climbed back towards $82,000, after $1.19 billion in liquidations in 24 hours. On September 4, a threat to suspend commercial exchanges with certain partners fell on the day Bitcoin fell below $80,000. Each of these messages therefore offers a subscribing algorithm an opportunity to act before the rest of the market.

Machine-translated from French