In this post I explain how an eavesdropper with access to Trump’s Truth Social backend could have profited by reading the text Trump inputs before he submits it. This is all technically feasible. For context, on March 23th, 15 minutes before Trump announced a tentative ceasefire with Iran, an unknown trader made a large suspicious bet on oil and stock futures, presumably profiting enormously. Below shows the trade in relation to the tweet:
And here is Trump’s tweet:
Some may be surprised to learn that any data that is imputed into a web form can be read without having to submit it. This is called a document event listener. This information is relayed to a server as it is typed. The main communication channel of the most powerful person in the world has been entrusted to a private company with no independent audits, and this is somehow perfectly reasonable or acceptable. An employee, such as someone in IT or if the server is compromised, in theory can read any text Trump inputs into his own website and act on this information before Trump submits it for the world to see. This information could be relayed to an accomplice to actually place the trade. It would take minutes.
So we imagine at t=0 the eavesdropper gets an alert that Trump has opened up Truth Social to initiate a tweet. At t+2 minutes, Trump begins to compose one of his ‘wall of text’ tweets, starting with “pleased,” “productive,” and “Iran.” These keywords suggest good news is imminent regarding Iran. At t+3 the eavesdropper relays the info to the accomplice to “buy stock futures” and to “short oil.” Because Trump’s tweets are so long, at t+18 minutes he finally finishes and hits “submit.” Instantly, oil prices fall and stock futures surge as expected and the trader profits.
The same pattern was seen in October 2025 when a massive, highly leveraged Bitcoin short sale was placed on the decentralized exchange Hyper Liquid just 30 minutes before Trump’s announcement of tariffs on China. The position was soon closed for a profit exceeding $150 million, prompting accusations of insider trading. Who tipped off the trader? Speculation has pointed to Trump’s son Barron–or even Trump himself–but neither theory holds much water.
Alluding to above, at the first mention of “China” and sensing the negative tone, such as “hostile”, the eavesdropper knew it would be bad news and relayed the information to his accomplice, who immediately executed the trade. About 30 minutes later–perhaps after taking a short break or reviewing his post–Trump submitted his tweet, making it public. Bitcoin instantly crashed. Given the post’s length and significance, it’s plausible that Trump spent around 30 minutes drafting and reviewing it before finally submitting it, which aligns with the timing of when the trade was opened and the official announcement that followed 30 minutes later.