YouTube to pay $24.5 million to settle lawsuit over Trump's account suspension after Jan. 6 attack

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Google’s YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit by President Donald Trump over his 2021 account suspension following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

According to documents filed in federal court in California, $22 million of the settlement will be contributed to the Trust for the National Mall to help pay for the construction of the White House State Ballroom. The rest will go to other plaintiffs, including the American Conservative Union.

Google is the latest big tech company to settle lawsuits brought by Trump. In January, Meta Platforms agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit over his 2021 suspension from Facebook. Elon Musk's X agreed to settle a similar lawsuit brought against the company then known as Twitter for $10 million.

The settlement does not constitute an admission of liability, the filing says. Google confirmed the settlement but declined to comment beyond it.

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.