YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle the lawsuit over the suspension of Trump's account after Jan. 6

YouTube will pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump. The company, owned by Google, suspended the current president's account in 2021, following the Jan. 6 events on Capitol Hill. The lawsuit was initially filed just a few months later, in July.

Of the total, $22 million will be used for the new White House ballroom, while the rest will go to other plaintiffs in the case, including Andrew Baggiani, Austen Fletcher, Maryse Veronica Jean-Louis, Frank Valentine, Kelly Victory, Naomi Wolf and the American Conservative Union, among others.

According to Trump, the suspension of his account constituted a violation of his free speech rights, pointing to the First Amendment. At the time, YouTube did not specify which rules the Republican had broken to warrant the suspension. It simply explained that the decision was made "in light of concerns about the continued potential for violence."

The account was reinstated in June 2023. At the time, the company justified itself by claiming that they did so to allow "voters to hear equally from major national candidates in the run-up to an election."

Since his return to the White House, Trump has struck similar deals with other social media companies. For example, Meta agreed to pay $25 million, while X agreed to pay $10 million. He also made settlements with ABC and CBS News.

The settlement with YouTube does not include an acceptance of guilt by the company or a change in its usage policies. "The disclosure of the settlement came a week before a scheduled Oct. 6 court hearing to discuss the case with U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers in Oakland, California," The Associated Press reported.