Worrying signals about the financial health and prospects of Donald Trump’s social network Truth Social are mounting just six months after the platform launched, with modest traffic. Fox Business Network reported Thursday (Aug. 25) that the company has stopped payments to its host RightForge and collected $1.6 million in shale. The parent company of Truth Social, Trump Media and Technology Group and RightForge did not respond to AFP’s request.
Also, TMTG’s merger with listed carmaker Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC), which should allow it to receive fresh cash, is slow to materialize 10 months after it was announced. On Thursday, DWAC published notice of its extraordinary general meeting on September 6, during which shareholders will be called upon to ratify a one-year extension of the deadline for achieving this union to September 8, 2023. They warn that, in the absence of a favorable vote, the company “will cause dissolution”.
If successful, the merger is expected to raise about $1.25 billion to TMTG, although some investors may still balk and push the envelope. According to financial statements released Tuesday, DWAC had just $3,000 in cash at the end of June, with money raised in the stock market locked up until the merger. DWAC is being investigated by US federal authorities, who have presented their evidence to a grand jury for possible criminal prosecution. The company is also regulated by the SEC.
Launched in late February, Truth Social aims to be an alternative to major social networks, particularly Twitter, from which Donald Trump has been suspended since early January 2021, with freedom of expression as its leitmotif. But six months after its debut, the platform only appears in the thirtieth position among social networking apps in the ranking of iPhone downloads published by Apple. According to the Statista database, the app is only downloaded about fifty thousand times a week. The former US president’s account has 3.91 million followers on Truth Social, but that number is still less than the 79.5 million he had on Twitter when he was suspended.
DWAC lost 2.42% on Wall Street on Thursday. The value of the title has melted 71% since the peak of the year in early March.
Source: Le Figaro
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.