YouTube settles Trump lawsuit with $24.5m payout

YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by U.S. President Donald Trump after the platform suspended his account in the wake of the January 6 Capitol riot.

According to court filings, the bulk of the settlement, $22 million, will be directed to the Trust for the National Mall, which is overseeing a $200 million project to build a ballroom at the White House. The rest, about $2.5 million, will go to other plaintiffs in the case, including the American Conservative Union and author Naomi Wolf.

The deal, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, stresses that YouTube admits no wrongdoing. Instead, the settlement was made “for the sole purpose of compromising disputed claims and avoiding the expenses and risks of further litigation.”

For YouTube, the payout is pocket change compared with the nearly $9.8 billion it earned in ad revenue in just the second quarter of 2025. But the deal is the latest in a string of settlements between Big Tech and Trump. Earlier this year, both Meta and X agreed to multimillion-dollar payouts to resolve similar lawsuits claiming Trump was unfairly censored after January 6.

John P. Coale, a Trump ally and lawyer who filed the three suits, said the outcome was exactly what they had hoped for.

Since de-platforming Trump over fears his false election claims were fueling violence, Silicon Valley’s posture toward him has shifted. Tech CEOs including Google’s Sundar Pichai, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Apple’s Tim Cook have recently heaped praise on Trump at White House events and pledged support for his administration’s AI initiatives.

It isn’t just platforms. Media companies have been paying up too. Paramount Global agreed to $16 million in July to settle Trump’s claims that 60 Minutes misled viewers with an interview featuring Kamala Harris. In December, ABC News settled with a $15 million contribution to Trump’s library after he accused anchor George Stephanopoulos of defamation.