Since launching in early 2022, former President Donald Trump‘s Truth Social took in $3.7 million in net sales, and lost $73 million.
The numbers are the first time that any internal financial details on the social platform have been shared publicly, and they suggest that while Trump has made Truth Social his primary social media platform, it has not been translating into meaningful revenue for the tech startup, which is owned by Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG).
The numbers were revealed in a new financial disclosure from TMTG’s SPAC merger partner Digital World Acquisition Corp. The filing revealed that in 2022, Truth Social lost $50 million on just $1.4 million of net sales, and through the first 6 months of this year it brought in $2.3 million, but lost $23 million.
The financial situation of TMTG is such that “TMTG’s independent registered public accounting firm has indicated that TMTG’s financial condition raises substantial doubt as to its ability to continue as a going concern,” according to the filing.
While I’d be happy to see Trump Social fail and go away, social media tends to be an unprofitable business. Twitter regularly posted losses, and did so regularly early in it’s existence (source). And Idiots Social isn’t about profits it’s about pushing right wing propaganda. Profits and losses don’t matter, only the platform being available and in the news.
Truth Social is a fork of Mastodon, and Mastodon.world only costs $1200 a month to run. They could have a propaganda arm that at the very least breaks even.
This sounds more like money laundering.
It’s only unprofitable if you run it like an idiot.
So yeah, most social media ventures are unprofitable. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t successful. Profit can be distorted based on how much employees are getting paid.
A business may be unprofitable, but if their CEO is taking in $400k/year, is it really?
