Google's YouTube will pay $24.5 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit with President Donald Trump over his account suspension following the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack. Court documents filed in California reveal that $22 million of the settlement will be donated to the Trust for the National Mall for construction of the White House State Ballroom, with the remainder going to other plaintiffs, including the American Conservative Union.
YouTube is the latest major tech firm to settle with Trump. The move follows similar settlements: Meta Platforms agreed to pay $25 million for his 2021 Facebook suspension, and Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) agreed to pay $10 million.
The filing states the settlement is not an admission of liability. Google confirmed the agreement but declined further comment. The news was disclosed just one week before a scheduled court hearing in Oakland, California.
How things unfolded
YouTube initially suspended Donald Trump's account in January 2021, stating that his channel received an automatic "one-strike" for uploading content that violated its policies, resulting in a minimum seven-day block on uploading new videos. The platform also disabled the channel's comments section.
Though YouTube did not specify which videos were in violation, it stated the "content" included comments from Trump that violated policies against inciting violence. At the time of the suspension, the account had 2.77 million subscribers and regularly featured videos from Trump and right-wing media outlets.
The action was part of a broader move by Google; at the same time, the company also removed Parler, a social media app popular with Trump supporters, from the Google Play Store, significantly hindering its accessibility for Android users.
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