Donald Trump’s social network lost $327.6m (£257.7m) in the first three months of the year, according to the first results released since its blockbuster $8bn float in March.
Trump Media and Technology (TMTG), the parent company of Mr Trump’s Twitter rival Truth Social, suffered the loss on revenues of just $770,500, a drop from $1.1m a year earlier. It attributed the fall to “a change in the revenue share with one of our advertising partners”.
The losses were almost entirely driven by accounting expenses related to the company recently going public in New York.
On an operating basis, the company lost $12.1m, around half of which were costs associated with the float.
The company is currently valued at $6.6bn and makes up a significant portion of the former president’s wealth. He owns a 65pc stake in TMTG.
Truth Social, Mr Trump’s only social media outlet, was founded after the former president left office in 2021 and launched in 2022. It functions similarly to Twitter, now known as X, with users able to post “truths” or share other people’s posts by “retruthing” them.
Commentators have said that the company’s value is detached from financial reality, with TMTG being compared to a “meme stock” in which its price is bidded up by supporters of Mr Trump. Revenues are largely from advertising.
It has also faced a wave of short selling, where investors bet the company’s share price will fall.
On Monday night TMTG said it had made progress on launching a video streaming service first announced in April, signing agreements with data centre and hardware companies to provide infrastructure.
Devin Nunes, TMTG chief executive and a former Republican Congressman, said the company was also considering mergers and acquisitions.
He said the company was “well-capitalised and supported by a legion of retail shareholders who believe in our mission to provide a free-speech beachhead against Big Tech censorship”.
TMTG was forced to replace its auditor, BF Borgers, earlier this month after US regulators shut down the firm, accusing it of a “massive fraud”.
Mr Trump’s company went public in March through a merger with Digital World, a listed shell company, using the stock ticker “DJT” - the former president and 2024 Republican candidate’s initials.
TMTG had around $274m in cash at the end of the first quarter.
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