Donald Trump’s social-media company Truth Social, which went public last week, disclosed its finances for 2023 in an SEC filing on Monday — revealing that it had brought in just over $4 million in revenue while losing more than $58 million last year.
The numbers are not great; neither are they a surprise. It’s been clear for months now that Truth Social is teetering on the brink of financial collapse. But the disclosure form shows just how bad things looked at the end of last year. Fourth quarter-revenue was just $751,500 — down 39 percent since the previous Q4, which is not exactly a trend line investors are looking for. It turns out that building a business around a single power user who happens to be the majority owner of the company is risky.
Truth Social’s stock price dropped around 23 percent on Monday after the news was announced, losing around $2 billion in value. But even if some investors have gotten spooked, it’s important to remember that Truth Social is not a normal company. As Nieman Lab founder Joshua Benton notes, a normal media company (like recently failed The Messenger) would be screwed in this situation:
Truth Social, however, depends on a large base of people who look past the company’s actual financial health and see their investment as a way of betting on Trump to win in November. Add a conservative billionaire who owns a significant chunk of Truth Social into the mix, and that’s a pretty reliable investor base — and one that might not be concerned by the daily movement of a volatile stock. On the other hand, there are plenty of haters: Truth Social is currently the most-shorted stock on the market with many other investors betting that a troubled company with a meme-stock run will inevitably flounder.
The SPAC deal through which Truth Social went public does allow Truth Social an opportunity to build out its operation. The deal included $300 million in cash to pay down its debt and make sure the platform actually works as it tries to grow its user base. More importantly for Trump, it made him a lot richer, at least on paper.
