YouTube to settle lawsuit with Trump over account suspension | US News

YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5m (£18.1m) to settle a lawsuit introduced by Donald Trump after it banned his account following the January 6 Capitol riot.

The US president was suspended from the Google-owned platform over his function within the rebellion, which saw his supporters attempt to stop Joe Biden’s 2020 election win from being ratified.

Greater than 4 years on from the violent scenes that left a police officer dead, court docket paperwork filed on Monday revealed that $22m (£16.3m) from the settlement will go in direction of a belief for Washington DC’s Nationwide Mall and the development of a White Home ballroom.

The rest will likely be paid to different events concerned within the case, together with the American Conservative Union.

Google declined to touch upon the explanations for the settlement, which doesn’t represent an admission of legal responsibility.

Mr Trump’s YouTube account has been again on-line since 2023.

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Google’s father or mother firm Alphabet is the third tech agency to settle with Mr Trump over what he perceived as an illegitimate muzzling of him on-line following the riot.

He was additionally suspended from Meta’s platforms and Twitter, strikes which noticed him gravitate in direction of his personal social media platform – Reality Social.

The president and his supporters have falsely maintained that the 2020 election was stolen.

Meta – which owns Fb and Instagram – agreed to pay $25m (£18.6m) to settle Mr Trump’s lawsuit, and X (what Twitter grew to become after being purchased by Elon Musk in 2022) settled for $10m (£7.4m).

Alphabet boss Sundar Pichai, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Mr Musk all attended Mr Trump’s inauguration this 12 months, with the latter having been a key contributor to his 2024 election marketing campaign.

He led the Trump administration’s cost-cutting DOGE unit through the early months of 2025.