Surprise, surprise.
Abandoned
Last night, in a glitchy interview with billionaire Elon Musk, former president Donald Trump made his triumphant return to X-formerly-Twitter. Meanwhile, the stock price for Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) — the company that owns the former president’s Twitter alternative Truth Social — plummeted.
TMTG went public after merging with a blank check acquisition company in March of this year, but its entry into the public marketplace has been chaotic, to say the absolute least. The company is still astronomically overvalued and has been losing millions of dollars.
And according to Business Insider, Trump’s big X homecoming has the company’s trading price going from bad to worse. On Monday evening, ahead of Trump’s chat with Musk, shares of DJT — yes, the stock’s NASDAQ ID is just Trump’s initials — were already down five percent. As of Tuesday morning, the stock was down another 3.5 percent.
In short, Trump’s return to a rival platform may not be great for business after all.
Greener Grass
TMTG’s dependence on Trump’s use of its flagship product is something that the media company itself has admitted. Per Quartz, in a June Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, TMTG wrote that its “business plan relies on President Donald J. Trump bringing his former social media followers” to Truth Social. It also listed Musk’s X as a competitor.
And to that end, for all of its own problems — of which there are many — it’s worth noting that X still draws a decent amount of users. Meanwhile, Truth Social’s comparatively puny user base has been shrinking. TMTG’s most recent earnings report also posted a $16 million loss for Q2, according to BI.
It’ll be fascinating to see how Trump’s return to frenemy Musk’s X will continue to impact TMTG. The company has yet to find a meaningful way to make any money, despite its multibillion-dollar valuation. Trump’s public embracing of one of his social network’s biggest competitors likely won’t help the situation, either.
More on DJT: Trump’s “Truth Social” Stock Is Crashing Again
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