YouTube To Pay $24.5 Million To Settle Donald Trump’s Lawsuit Over Account Suspension

YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Donald Trump over his suspension from the platform following the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

According to a filing in federal court in Oakland, Alphabet-owned YouTube will pay $22 million to the Trust for the National Mall, to be used for the construction of a White House state ballroom, one of Trump’s pet projects since returning to office. Another $2.5 million will go to other plaintiffs, including American Conservative Union, Andrew Baggiani, Austen Fletcher, Maryse Veronica Jean-Louis, Frank Valentine, Kelly Victory and Naomi Wolf.

Trump has extracted settlements from other platforms that suspended his accounts, including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, now X.

According to the filing, the settlement “shall not constitute an admission of liability or fault on the part of the Defendants or their agents, servants, or employees, and is entered into by all Parties for the sole purpose of compromising disputed claims and avoiding the expenses and risks of further litigation.”

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the settlement.

A Google spokesperson did not immediate return a request for comment.

When YouTube suspended Trump in 2021, shortly after January 6th, the video platform said in a statement, “After review, and in light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, we removed new content uploaded to Donald J. Trump’s channel for violating our policies. It now has its 1st strike & is temporarily prevented from uploading new content for a minimum of 7 days.” The account was reinstated in 2023.

More to come.