Truth Social tanks as Donald Trump returns to X

Donald Trump’s social media network Truth Social is rapidly declining in value as the former president has started posting on X for the first time in over a year.

On Monday morning, Trump posted a campaign video to X, followed by several other posts, one of which advertised an interview with X CEO Elon Musk later that day.

“It will be the interview of the century,” he wrote.

The interview was fraught with technical issues and began more than 40 minutes late. But Trump's return to posting on a competitor is unlikely to help Truth Social's financial situation.

Over a three month period that ended June 30, Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media & Technology, lost more than $16 million. At $24.60 on Monday, shares in the company sat at their lowest price in months, The New Republic reported, further declining to $23.37 on Tuesday morning. In 2022, shares were at one point trading at more than $97.

Many investors hoped the 2024 election would be a boost for Truth Social, but the company has been on a steep decline since its inception. In its first quarter of this year, Trump Media &Technology lost more than $300 million and only brought in $770,500 in revenue, The Guardian reported.

Along with a drop in value, Truth Social is rapidly losing users. When the platform was launched in Feb. 2022, it had around 3.26 million users. In June of this year, it declined to 2.11 million users, a decline of 38%, according to reporting from The Guardian.

“The diminishing audience levels for Truth Social suggest a rejection of the harsh rhetoric expressed by the ex-president and his political allies that is one of the hallmarks of the two-year-old platform,” a rightwing media analyst, Howard Polskin, told The Guardian.

“If this softness persists, it might portend trouble for Mr. Trump at the ballot box in November,” he added.