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Trump found another way to profit off the presidency and massage his own ego. Also, sky is blue.
Since the start of Trump's second term, he's had a habit of posting internationally-important, market-moving news (e.g. about employment numbers, oil prices, bombing campaigns, etc.) on his Truth Social account, presumably a few minutes after investing in those market movements himself but before any official government publication or traditional outlet hears about them. Which means that Wall Street investors, foreign governments, etc. are obligated to subscribe to Truth Social, putting money in Trump's pocket, so they get that news ASAP.
The new twist, as of yesterday, is that Truth Social will charge between $60,000 and $100,000/month for "premium accounts" with slightly-faster, machine-readable notification of Truth Social announcements. (There are articles in WSJ, FT, etc. mostly behind paywalls.)
The obvious target audience is algorithmic traders, who already make a point of setting up offices as close as possible to the Stock Exchange so they can shave a few milliseconds off their responses to stock movements. All of those algorithmic traders are now obligated to pay the President's company another $2K-3K per day in order to avoid losing bets to other algorithmic traders who did pay up and therefore know the news a few milliseconds sooner. Foreign governments probably aren't worried about the news on a millisecond scale, unless they're also algorithmic traders, but depending on how much faster the premium feed is, they too might feel an obligation to pay Truth Social for that early access to the President's 2 AM rants on the off chance that they contain something that matters.
Donald Trump has always had an instinct for finding as many ways to make money as possible, so this isn't all that new.
It's also another example of Trump's go-to negotiating tactic, developed over many decades: assert a dominant position in the dom/sub hierarchy before negotiations even start, so the other guy expects to lose and is more likely to give in to my demands. Sometimes this means refusing to admit ever losing any contest (e.g. the 2020 Presidential election, not to mention dozens of lawsuits), so you can maintain the image of "always winning". Sometimes it means intentionally arriving at meetings late so everybody else has to wait on you, demonstrating that you're more important than they are. Sometimes it means demanding that your underlings publicly swear to things that you and they know aren't true, to prove that they'll do anything for you. Or demanding that private companies give you expensive presents and "legal settlements" with no legal basis, to prove that they acknowledge your ability to help or hurt them depending on your mood. Sometimes (as in "The Apprentice") it means dragging out the drama of your completely arbitrary announcement until the last possible moment, to reinforce in everybody's mind that their lives depend on your whim. The President measures his importance by how many people are waiting on his words, no matter how nonsensical or arbitrary -- indeed, if people are waiting with bated breath on the most trivial and nonsensical things I say, that's an even better proof of my importance.
The new twist, as of yesterday, is that Truth Social will charge between $60,000 and $100,000/month for "premium accounts" with slightly-faster, machine-readable notification of Truth Social announcements. (There are articles in WSJ, FT, etc. mostly behind paywalls.)
The obvious target audience is algorithmic traders, who already make a point of setting up offices as close as possible to the Stock Exchange so they can shave a few milliseconds off their responses to stock movements. All of those algorithmic traders are now obligated to pay the President's company another $2K-3K per day in order to avoid losing bets to other algorithmic traders who did pay up and therefore know the news a few milliseconds sooner. Foreign governments probably aren't worried about the news on a millisecond scale, unless they're also algorithmic traders, but depending on how much faster the premium feed is, they too might feel an obligation to pay Truth Social for that early access to the President's 2 AM rants on the off chance that they contain something that matters.
Donald Trump has always had an instinct for finding as many ways to make money as possible, so this isn't all that new.
It's also another example of Trump's go-to negotiating tactic, developed over many decades: assert a dominant position in the dom/sub hierarchy before negotiations even start, so the other guy expects to lose and is more likely to give in to my demands. Sometimes this means refusing to admit ever losing any contest (e.g. the 2020 Presidential election, not to mention dozens of lawsuits), so you can maintain the image of "always winning". Sometimes it means intentionally arriving at meetings late so everybody else has to wait on you, demonstrating that you're more important than they are. Sometimes it means demanding that your underlings publicly swear to things that you and they know aren't true, to prove that they'll do anything for you. Or demanding that private companies give you expensive presents and "legal settlements" with no legal basis, to prove that they acknowledge your ability to help or hurt them depending on your mood. Sometimes (as in "The Apprentice") it means dragging out the drama of your completely arbitrary announcement until the last possible moment, to reinforce in everybody's mind that their lives depend on your whim. The President measures his importance by how many people are waiting on his words, no matter how nonsensical or arbitrary -- indeed, if people are waiting with bated breath on the most trivial and nonsensical things I say, that's an even better proof of my importance.