Trump sued Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube over measures they took to restrict his use of those sites.
President Donald Trump has ended his lawsuit against Twitter over the platform’s decision to ban him following the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.
In a
notice filed on Feb. 7 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, legal teams for both sides requested that the court dismiss Trump’s pending appeal. The notice did not say whether Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter and rebranded it as X, had agreed to any terms to resolve the case.
In July 2021, Trump filed separate cases against Twitter, Facebook, and Google’s YouTube over similar measures they took to restrict his use of those sites. Twitter
said at the time that Trump’s messages—including one in which he stated that he would not be attending incoming President Joe Biden’s inauguration—were “highly likely” to inspire more violence.
Trump’s lawsuits centered on free speech violations. While private companies ordinarily have no legal obligation to honor free speech rights, the suits alleged that Twitter and other platforms were essentially acting as agents of Democratic members of Congress who wanted him deplatformed.
“Legislators ... made it increasingly clear that they wanted President Trump, and the views he espoused, to be banned from Defendants’ platform,” the
complaint alleged, citing multiple statements from Democratic lawmakers urging Big Tech to take action against Trump.
The suits were initially filed in Florida but were later moved to federal court in California at the companies’ request. In May 2022, a San Francisco judge dismissed the case against Twitter and Jack Dorsey, its former CEO, ruling that Twitter was not acting as a government agent when it suspended Trump. Trump appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit.
All three platforms eventually dropped the bans. Musk, a self-described free speech absolutist who is now a core adviser to Trump, restored Trump’s account in November 2022, just days after Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential race.
Attorneys for Twitter have argued that Trump’s case was moot since his account had been reinstated under Musk’s revised content moderation policies. However, the case lingered on, since at least two pro-Trump advocates who joined the lawsuit did not have their accounts restored.
Since winning reelection, Trump has secured favorable settlements with tech and media companies he had accused of defaming or mistreating him.
In December 2024, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million toward Trump’s future presidential library to settle a
defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’s on-air claim that Trump had been found “liable for rape.” The settlement labeled ABC’s payment as a “charitable contribution” earmarked for the yet-to-be-built library.
In January 2025, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram,
agreed to pay $25 million to resolve Trump’s suit over his suspension from Facebook and Instagram. Approximately $22 million of that amount will go toward Trump’s presidential library, with the remainder covering legal fees and other plaintiffs.
