Donald Trump's social-media business lost more than US$58 million last year as revenue for the former president’s Truth Social platform trickled in, contrasting sharply with the company’s rocketing share price.
Trump Media & Technology Group Corp generated just US$4.1 million in revenue for the full year, results reported in a filing Monday morning show, providing an update on the stock that closed its blank-check deal last week. Despite the modest financials, the company was worth about US$7.5 billion even after an 11% drop in early trading, as the meme stock continued to captivate retail traders.
Trump owns a 57% stake, according to the filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which is worth about US$4.25 billion as shares slipped as low as US$55.07 Monday. However, he can’t sell the stake immediately due to a six-month lock-up agreement, hindering his ability to monetize the shares and ease his present cash crunch.
In the filing, Trump Media’s revenue inched higher from US$1.47 million in 2022 as it swung to an annual loss. The company recorded a US$50.5 million profit in 2022 after getting a boost from a change in the value related to its convertible notes.
Trump’s media company debuted last week after the closing of the merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp brought in more than US$275 million of much-needed cash. The media startup had warned that without the deal there were concerns that it could go bankrupt.
Trump currently faces legal troubles including four criminal prosecutions. The first criminal trial — alleging he falsified business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn star before the 2016 election — is set to start April 15. He was hit with a US$454 million penalty after the New York attorney general proved at trial that he’d inflated his net wealth by billions of dollars a year in bank transactions.
