YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump, marking another major victory for Trump in his long running fight against what he has called politically motivated censorship by Big Tech.
The settlement, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Northern California, ends a four-year battle over YouTube’s decision to suspend Trump’s account following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The company restored his account in 2023, after years of pressure from conservatives who argued that banning a sitting or former president amounted to an unprecedented assault on free speech.
Under the agreement, YouTube and its parent Alphabet will pay $22 million to Trump, directed to a fund that supports both preservation of the National Mall and construction of a new White House State Ballroom championed by the president. Another $2.5 million will go to other conservative groups whose accounts were also targeted, including the American Conservative Union.
The payout follows similar settlements Trump secured from Meta and X earlier this year $25 million and $10 million respectively, bringing his total legal victories against Big Tech suspensions to roughly $60 million. Trump and his allies say the cases exposed the close ties between government officials and social media platforms, which they argue coordinated to silence conservative voices.
“YouTube’s claim that silencing the president of the United States was somehow about its own ‘First Amendment rights’ never held water,” Trump attorney John Coale told CBS News. “Glad it’s over.” Alphabet declined to comment.
Trump has since reestablished ties with major technology leaders, inviting Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to his inauguration in January. Elon Musk, who restored free speech protections on X after buying the company, briefly served as head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The Trump administration announced in July that a 90,000-square-foot ballroom with seating for 650 people will be built in the White House’s East Wing. Nearly $200 million has already been pledged by donors across multiple industries, including defense contractors, tech firms, and manufacturers, underscoring Trump’s renewed influence with corporate America.
