President Donald Trump took a victory lap after his latest shakedown of a big tech company, sharing a meme showing an embarrassed YouTube exec handing over a giant-size check for $24.5 million to the president.
On Monday, a court filing revealed that Alphabet, YouTube’s parent company, agreed to pay a total of $24.5 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit alleging “censorship” over YouTube’s suspension of his channel following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. YouTube had determined he violated the site’s policy against inciting violence.
The image Trump posted Monday evening shows a sheepish-looking man wearing a gray hoodie (perhaps meant to be YouTube CEO Neal Mohan) holding a check made out to “Donald J. Trump” for $24.5 million with a memo line that says “Settlement for Wrongful Suspension.” Trump is shown holding the other side of the novelty check, grinning and giving a thumbs-up.
The text reads, “YouTube SURRENDERS! Pays President Trump $24.5 MILLION for illegal ban! This MASSIVE victory proves Big Tech censorship has consequences. Every shadowbanned patriot deserves justice!” It continues, “Trump fought for free speech and WON! Repost if ALL banned conservatives should be paid!”
Here’s the post, shared at 11:46 p.m. ET on Trump’s Truth Social account:
Under the settlement, YouTube, Google and Alphabet did not admit any wrongdoing nor did they agree to make any policy or product changes.
Separately, last week Alphabet disclosed that YouTube will soon let creators back on the platform who were previously banned over now-retired content policies — including those prohibiting content with misinformation about the 2020 U.S. presidential election and COVID-19.
Of the $24.5 million total payments to settle Trump’s YouTube lawsuit, Alphabet will pay $22 million to Trump, who designated that the funds go to the Trust for the National Mall and toward the construction of the White House ballroom. An additional $2.5 million will be paid to other plaintiffs in the case, including the American Conservative Union.
Trump formed Trump Media & Technology Group, which operates Truth Social, after he was banned or suspended from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and other major internet platforms in the wake of the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which aimed to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
In July 2021, Trump sued Meta (then called Facebook), Twitter and Google over their suspension of his accounts on their platforms, alleging those were “unconstitutional” actions violating his free-speech rights. However, that’s a misreading of the First Amendment, which prohibits government restrictions on free speech and does not apply to private companies.
YouTube had filed a motion in December 2021 seeking to dismiss Trump’s lawsuit, arguing that it “flip[ped] the First Amendment on its head” and represented an attempt “to try to override YouTube’s own choices about what material belongs on its service.” But, like other companies subject to legal attacks by Trump, Alphabet ultimately decided to negotiate a settlement.
In January 2025, Meta agreed to pay $25 million to settle Trump‘s lawsuit. The following month, Twitter, now controlled by billionaire Elon Musk and called X, paid Trump about $10 million.
YouTube in March 2023 lifted its suspension on Trump, saying it weighed risks of violence with letting voters “hear equally from major national candidates.” That came after Meta said it was reinstating Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts with “new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.” Musk reinstated Trump’s account on Twitter/X in November 2022.
Meanwhile, media companies that have paid Trump millions to settle lawsuits include Paramount Global, which this summer paid the president $16 million to settle his lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” segment, and Disney, which in December 2024 paid a total of $16 million to Trump to settle a defamation lawsuit against ABC News.
variety.com
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