The media company behind US President Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform has slumped to a 238 million US dollar (£176 million) quarterly loss and announced plans to move back to its social media roots.
Trump Media & Technology’s losses in the three months to June were more than 10 times those a year earlier, as it counted the cost of branching out into businesses outside media, such as crypto, online betting, finance and even nuclear energy.
It said, on announcing second quarter figures, that it would largely ditch many of the new ventures and refocus efforts on its social media mission and acting as a forum for users to post their views.
The firm’s new chief executive, Kevin McGurn, said: “We made the disciplined choice to pivot in order to invest more time and resources in our most important initiatives.
“We will say no to things or change course as warranted.”
Key to the firm’s plans is its controversial new Truth API service, which charges for special high speed access to Truth Social posts, including those made by Mr Trump.
Wall Street financial traders can access posts from top users ahead of others – such as major policy announcements made by Mr Trump on the platform – allowing them to profit from subsequent moves in shares, bonds and interest rates.
It has already signed up 10 customers since launching on August 1, paying between 60,000 dollars (£44,440) and 100,000 dollars (£74,065) each a month.
But Trump Media has attracted criticism from those claiming it is a vehicle for Mr Trump to profit from his presidency.
Mr McGurn brushed aside these concerns, saying: “Providing licensed real-time public data through commercial APIs (application programming interface) is a well-established business practice across the technology, financial information and media industries.
“This is no different.”
He confirmed Trump Media’s nuclear fusion business would continue under the new strategy, with aims to complete a previously-announced merger with energy company TAE Technologies by the end of 2026.
Its second-quarter figures showed much of the hit to the result was because of paper losses on the value of the firm’s crypto holdings.
With those paper losses excluded, Trump Media suffered a 164 million dollar (£121 million) loss from a 44 million dollar loss (£33 million) a year earlier.
In the second quarter, Trump Media posted revenues of 1.7 million dollars (£1.3 million), more than double from a year ago.
