YouTube platform has agreed to pay $24.5 million to resolve a lawsuit that President Donald Trump presented against the company over the suspension of his account following the January 2021 U.S. Capitol riots, a court filing showed on Monday.
U.S President Trump had also sued X platform formerly known as twitter and Facebook owner Meta <META.O>, as well as Alphabet’s Google, and their chief executives in July 2021.
The agreement makes Google the last of the three big tech companies to resolve lawsuits president Trump brought in July 2021 alleging them of unlawfully silencing conservative perspectives.
The Meta and X platforms concured earlier this year to pay to settle the lawsuits.
Under the YouTube settlement, $22 million will be paid on Trump’s behalf to the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit that the filing says is dedicated to the construction of a $200 million ballroom that Trump is building at the White House.
Work on the 90,000-square-foot (8361.27 square meters) facility is expected to be completed “long before” Trump’s four-year term ends in January 2029.
The remaining amount will go to other plaintiffs in the case, including the American Conservative Union, which sponsors the Conservative Political Action Conference, and U.S. author Naomi Wolf.
YouTube did not acknowledge any form of wrongdoing and will not produce product or policy changes under the settlement. Trump did not lose his YouTube account in 2021 but was suspended from uploading new videos; it was restored in 2023.
