Meta Will Pay Trump $25 Million To Settle Suit Over Account Suspension

Meta Platforms has agreed to pay $25 million to President Donald Trump to settle a lawsuit over his suspension from the service following the January 6, 2021 riot in Washington, D.C.

The settlement, signed Wednesday, ends a legal battle dating to July 2021, when Trump claimed in a lawsuit that Meta violated the First Amendment by banning him.

Meta, along with X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube, took down Trump's accounts after insurrectionists stormed the Capitol in an effort to prevent the Senate from certifying former President Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election. All three companies later allowed Trump back on their platforms.

Several months after his suspension from social media, Trump sued all three social media platforms, accusing them of wrongly suppressing his speech.

U.S. District Court Judge James Donato, assigned to the suit against X, dismissed Trump's complaint in May 2022, ruling that only the government -- and not private companies like X -- are bound by the First Amendment prohibition on censorship.