The company that TMTG is planned to merge with, DWAC, broke out the surprising results in a securities filing Monday.

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.

  • sylver_dragon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
      18·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • Wiz@midwest.socialEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        Money laundering? With Trump? NEVER!

        And by never, I mean, every fucking minute he can get away with it.

    • interceder270@lemmy.world
      102·
      1 year ago

      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?

    • DrPop@lemmy.one
      1·
      1 year ago

      Yeah social media platforms are expensive b and part of the reason it’s monetized with ads or, in Facebook I’m other countries, subscriptions.

    • KneeTitts@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Its a propaganda outlet, those dont have to mask money in the long run because thats not their purpose.

  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
    111·
    1 year ago

    73 million, average salary is around 50k in total compensation, works out to 1,460. For the amount of money lost on this vanity project you could have hired the working age population of a village to spend a year planting trees, with paid vacation, 401k matching of about 3% and 80% of health insurance coverage. Still leaving enough left over for weekly Pizza instead of pay raise parties.

    I found a reference online claiming that by handtools a human can plant between 800 to 2000 trees a day. I am going to assume they all are bad at their job and can only plant 500 a day. At the end of the year 73,000 trees would been planted. The Pacific Northwest forest has 40,000 trees per square km so our planters could reforest 1.825 square km.

    Glad we have our priorities correct as a civilization

  • 𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖈𝖍@lemmy.world
    6·
    1 year ago

    Imagine having that much money to just throw around. Hell, I’ll take 1/73 of that and it’ll be enough to have a decently comfortable life without worrying about any expenses. Or imagine if that $73M was towards social net programs.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
      84·
      1 year ago

      I find it unfathomnable that he’s lost ten million on it.

      It’s only been around for what? 2 years? 40-some employees, most of whom are probably paid shit wages…. Even at 100k average salad … that’s only 4 million…and apparently they’re loosing 1.7 million, each month. (Or we’re/are)

      Wooopz…

  • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
    5·
    1 year ago

    How much did Trump stake for equity? Considering that he’s the main draw to the platform and the only thing keeping them in the news, I assume he got an ownership stake worth a lot more than he contributed, he might still make money if they sold now.

    So this news is only really telling us that it’s probably not going to stay in business past the election if he loses.