The ex-president seeks to make the startup behind Truth Social a public company, but the platform’s misinformation and conspiracy are hardly attractive.

Digital World Acquisition, a publicly-traded investment and special acquisitions company, filed in mid-November a merger request with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to take over Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), a startup former U.S. president Donald Trump founded almost two years ago. 

According to the document, TMTG - which operates the far-right social media platform Truth Social - is literally bankrupt or a money-loser at best. Since its inception in February 2021, the company has lost 73 million dollars, of which almost 23 million in the first half of 2023 alone. 

"TMTG has suffered negative cash flows and recurring losses from operations that raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern," the document filed with the SEC says.

Abundant in misinformation and conspiracy theories, Truth Social burns millions of dollars and bleeds thousands of users monthly just for the sake of reinforcing the beliefs shared by Donald Trump and his radical followers. This does not attract advertisers and mainstream media readers, which is why the future of Truth Social is under question.

The merger could bail out the former president’s startup to giving it access to around 300 million dollars in available funds. Whether he planned takeover of TMTG by Digital World Acquisition – because essentially this is what’s happening – will change this situation remains to be seen, but Trump clearly hopes that investors will rush to buy stakes in his platform. 

Truth Social is a reaction of Donald Trump to being kicked out of Twitter and Facebook for spreading falsehood, which he is free now to post on his own platform. Just like his, the platforms of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, too, are losing users – and advertisers – literally for the same reason.

But unlike Musk and Zuckerberg, Trump faces several ongoing criminal investigations, including accounts of fraud, class action lawsuits against his family's corporation, and counts of incitement for the January 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

SimilarWeb, an online audience measuring tool, estimate that Truth Social has 607,000 monthly users.