Trump Says $1 Billion in Damages Sought from Harvard
By Reuters | 02 Feb, 2026

The odd Social Media post comes after a federal judge ruled against Trump's termination of federal research grants and a claimed settlement in which Harvard would pay $500 million never materialized.

U.S. President Donald Trump said late on Monday that his administration is seeking $1 billion in damages from Harvard University.

"We are now seeking One Billion Dollars in damages, and want nothing further to do, into the future, with Harvard University," he said in a post on Truth Social, without saying what specific harms the university had caused.

Trump's administration in December appealed a judge's ruling holding that it unlawfully terminated more than $2 billion in grants awarded to Harvard and can no longer cut off research funding to the Ivy League school.

Harvard has been a central focus of the administration's broad campaign to leverage federal funding to force change at U.S. universities, which Trump says are gripped by antisemitic and "radical left" ideologies.

Trump said last year that his administration was close to a deal with Harvard that would include a $500 million payment by the school, after months of negotiations over school policies. 

(Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Christian Schmollinger)