Alphabet, parent company of YouTube, has agreed to pay a total of $24.5 million to settle President Donald Trump’s 2021 lawsuit alleging “censorship” over YouTube’s suspension of his account for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The terms of the settlement were disclosed in a court filing Monday. YouTube, Google and Alphabet did not admit any wrongdoing nor did they agree to make any policy or product changes as part of the settlement.
The settlement by Alphabet over the YouTube suit comes after Meta and X (formerly Twitter) have also paid Trump millions to resolve similar lawsuits. In addition, Paramount Global this summer paid $16 million to Trump to settle his lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” segment (followed by the FCC’s approval of Skydance Media’s acquisition of Paramount less than a month later), and Disney in December 2024 agreed to pay $15 million to Trump’s presidential library (plus $1 million in legal fees) to settle a defamation lawsuit against ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos.
Of the $24.5 million total, Alphabet will pay $22 million to “settle and resolve with Plaintiff Donald J. Trump any and all disputes and claims arising out of or relating to the Action, which he has directed to be contributed, on his behalf, to the Trust for the National Mall, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt entity dedicated to restoring, preserving, and elevating the National Mall [and] to support the construction of the White House State Ballroom,” the filing says.
Alphabet also will pay $2.5 million to other plaintiffs in the case — the American Conservative Union, Andrew Baggiani, Austen Fletcher, Maryse Veronica Jean-Louis, Frank Valentine, Kelly Victory and Naomi Wolf — to settle “any and all disputes and claims arising out of or relating to the Action, to be distributed among them in accordance with the terms of the Settlement Agreements executed between Defendants and those Plaintiffs,” per the filing.
A Google rep declined to comment on the settlement. A copy of the notice of settlement is available at this link.
In July 2021, Trump sued Meta (then called Facebook), Twitter and Google over the internet companies’ moves to suspend his accounts on their platforms following his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, alleging “censorship.” YouTube on Jan. 12, 2021, had determined that Trump’s channel violated the site’s policy against inciting violence and indefinitely suspended his account.
In January 2025, just before Trump took office for his second presidential term, Meta agreed to pay $25 million to settle Trump‘s lawsuit alleging censorship over the social media giant’s suspension of his Facebook and Instagram accounts after the Jan. 6 attack. Twitter, which Elon Musk renamed X in July 2023, paid $10 million in February 2025 to settle Trump’s suit.
YouTube in March 2023 lifted its suspension on Trump, saying it weighed risks of violence with letting voters “hear equally from major national candidates.” Meanwhile, in January 2023, Meta said it was reinstating Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts with “new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.” Musk reinstated Trump’s account on Twitter/X in November 2022.
In his original lawsuit against YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, Trump alleged the actions were “unconstitutional” and violated his First Amendment rights, but that reflects a misunderstanding of what the U.S. Constitution actually says. The First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting free speech and does not apply to private companies.
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