YouTube to settle lawsuit with Trump over account suspension

YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5m (£18.1m) to settle a lawsuit brought by Donald Trump after it banned his account following the January 6 Capitol riot.

The US president was suspended from the Google-owned platform over his role in the insurrection, which saw his supporters attempt to stop Joe Biden's 2020 election win from being ratified. More than four years on from the violent scenes that left a police officer dead, court documents filed on Monday revealed that $22m (£16.3m) from the settlement will go towards a trust for Washington DC's National Mall and the construction of a White House ballroom.

The remainder will be paid to other parties involved in the case, including the American Conservative Union. Google declined to comment on the reasons for the settlement, which does not constitute an admission of liability.

Mr Trump's YouTube account has been back online since 2023. Read more from Sky News:Trump wants to govern Gaza with Blair Google's parent company Alphabet is the third tech firm to settle with Mr Trump over what he perceived as an illegitimate muzzling of him online following the riot.

He was also suspended from Meta's platforms and Twitter, moves which saw him gravitate towards his own social media platform - Truth Social. The president and his supporters have falsely maintained that the 2020 election was stolen.

Meta - which owns Facebook and Instagram - agreed to pay $25m (£18.6m) to settle Mr Trump's lawsuit, and X (what Twitter became after being bought by Elon Musk in 2022) settled for $10m (£7.4m). Alphabet boss Sundar Pichai, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, and Mr Musk all attended Mr Trump's inauguration this year, with the latter having been a key contributor to his 2024 election campaign.

He led the Trump administration's cost-cutting DOGE unit during the early months of 2025..