Meta will pay Donald Trump roughly $25 million as part of a settlement agreement resolving a 2021 lawsuit brought after the company suspended the president’s Facebook accounts.
President Trump has signed settlement papers that are expected to require Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to pay roughly $25 million to resolve a 2021 lawsuit Trump brought against the social media giant, according to sources familiar with the agreement.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the settlement.
The lawsuit stemmed from Meta’s suspension of his accounts after the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Facebook (which is now Meta) initially suspended and then announced in June 2021 that it would ban Mr. Trump from its platform for at least two years, after finding that his posts on Jan. 6 had stoked violence and posed a risk to public safety. Twitter, now named X and owned by Elon Musk, also barred Mr. Trump from its social media site for the same reason.
Mr. Trump sued Facebook and Twitter, claiming they had violated his First Amendment right to free speech in “illegal, unconstitutional censorship.” He was reinstated on Twitter in 2022 and returned to Facebook in 2023.
[…] According to the Wall Street Journal, $22 million will be donated to a fund for Mr. Trump’s presidential library, and the rest will be used for legal fees and go to other plaintiffs on the case.
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