YouTube to pay $24.5 million to settle lawsuit over Trump's account
suspension after Jan. 6 attack
[September 30, 2025] By
BARBARA ORTUTAY and MICHAEL LIEDTKE
Google’s YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit
President Donald Trump brought after the video site suspended his
account following the Jan. 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol following the
election that resulted in him leaving the White House for four years.
The settlement of the more than four-year-old case earmarks $22 million
for Trump to contribute to the Trust for the National Mall and a
construction of a White House ballroom, according to court documents
filed Monday. The remaining $2.5 million will be paid to other parties
involved in the case, including the writer Naomi Wolf and the American
Conservative Union.
Alphabet, the parent of Google, is the third major technology company to
settle a volley of lawsuits that Trump brought for what he alleged had
unfairly muzzled him after his first term as president ended in January
2021. He filed similar cases Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Twitter
before it was bought by billionaire Elon Musk in 2022 and rebranded as
X.
Meta agreed to pay $25 million to settle Trumps’ lawsuit over his 2021
suspension from Facebook and X agreed to settle the lawsuit that Trump
brought against Twitter for $10 million. When the lawsuits against Meta.
Twitter and YouTube were filed, legal experts predicted Trump had little
chance of prevailing.
After buying Twitter for $44.5 billion, Musk later became major
contributor to Trump’s successful 2024 campaign that resulted in his
re-election and then spent several months leading a cost-cutting effort
that purged thousands of workers from the federal government payroll
before the two had a bitter falling out. Both Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai
and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg were among the tech leaders who lined up
behind Trump during his second inauguration in January in a show of
solidarity that was widely interpreted as a sign of the industry’s
intention to work more closely with the president than during his first
administration.
[to top of second column] |
A YouTube sign is shown near the company's headquarters in San
Bruno, Calif., Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, file)
 ABC News, meanwhile, agreed to pay
$15 million in December toward Trump’s presidential library to
settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’
inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found
civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. And in July,
Paramount decided to pay Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit
regarding editing at CBS’ storied “60 Minutes” news program.
The settlement does not constitute an admission of liability, the
filing says. Google confirmed the settlement but declined to comment
beyond it.
Google declined to comment on the reasons for the settlement., but
Trump’s YouTube account has been restored since 2023. The settlement
is will barely dent Alphabet, which has a market value of nearly $3
trillion — an increase of about $600 billion, or 25%, since Trump’s
return to the White House.
The disclosure of the settlement came a week before a scheduled Oct.
6 court hearing to discuss the case with U.S. District Judge Yvonne
Gonzalez-Rogers in Oakland, California.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
