Truth Social isn’t doing great!
Sure, former President Donald Trump himself uses the knock-off social media site obsessively, but its active user base is only a small fraction of that found on Twitter (now X), which Trump used most actively before he was (temporarily) booted following the Capitol riot in 2021. And finances-wise, there are difficulties. Forbes now says that Trump has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in value from his stake in his namesake company that is behind Truth Social, which Devin Nunes (the former GOP Congressman from California) helps lead.
“Trump’s 90% stake in Truth Social’s parent company has plummeted in value from an estimated $730 million to less than $100 million,” Forbes said. The financial publication reported as much as they also reported that Trump had again fallen off their list of the 400 richest people in the United States. They isolated the financial hits behind Truth Social as a major factor in the financial decline that pushed the former president from the list.
Though the matters haven’t directly implicated Trump, who has plenty of his own criminal and civil proceedings with which to deal at this point, regulatory issues involving a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that has been trying to merge with Trump’s firm have also thrown up a major hurdle to financial advancement. The business combination actually materializing would allow the Trump company to access new pools of financial resources. The SPAC, Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC), is public, meaning that list could include an inflow of financial support from everyday Americans alongside big-name financial institutions and wealthy individuals.
But it’s not happening — yet, with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission having in July announced (settled) fraud charges against the SPAC. The issue arose from discussions by individuals who were involved in that organization with the Trump team about the anticipated merger — contacts which the SPAC obscured in filings. As merging is central to the business operations of this kind of corporate entity, the obfuscation could’ve impacted investors.