Truth Social: Donald Trump's Latest Failure

Ooooops, he did it again!

What recently happened to Donald Trump's Truth Social is like a soap opera in that every day there's new drama. This quote from Charles Dickens definitely fits Truth Social really well:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Ever since I first learned about the existence of Donald Trump back in the 1980s, he has shown an amazing talent in just one area—convincing others that he is a very successful billionaire businessman despite his history of multiple bankruptcies.

I still remember when I actually watched the first season of The Apprentice and Donald Trump had his contestants travel to the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City for a challenge that was held there. Trump introduced the latest challenge by gushing about how his Trump Taj Mahal was a state of the art hotel and casino with the latest in everything. Two or three weeks after that episode aired the Trump Taj Mahal filed for bankruptcy. That hotel and casino has since closed down permanently. (So much for “state of the art.” LOL!)

The Trump Taj Mahal wasn't an anomaly. Every single one of his casinos in Atlantic City went bankrupt. In addition Trump had a lot of side businesses in areas other than real estate (which was supposedly the main focus of his family-owned business) that were also short-lived. The list includes Trump Vodka, Trump: The Game (boardgame), Trump Airlines, Trump Magazine, Trump Steaks, Trump University, Trump Ice (bottled water), and Trump Mortgage.

Before Trump got into high tech with Truth Social, he made a previous foray into high tech with GoTrump, which was a search engine for luxury travel deals, which included private jets. GoTrump only lasted about a year.

And now there's Truth Social, which could be on the verge of going the way of GoTrump and his other now-defunct side businesses. For years I've heard people say that everything Trump touches dies and Truth Social is the latest example of this. If you read the details about the rise and fall of Truth Social, it makes for a riveting drama while feeling a sense of schadenfreude because you're lucky enough to not even touch all that garbage with a ten-foot pole. I wouldn't be surprised if, sometime in the future, someone in Hollywood attempts to make a feature movie about the Truth Social debacle that's similar to The Social Network.

It all started when Donald Trump became a Twitter addict who constantly spewed hateful, nasty stuff. If you really want to see the evolution of Trump's Twitter account, go to the Trump Twitter Archive site (which not only includes his tweets that went live but also tweets that he briefly posted then later deleted). Next to the “56,571 tweets” at the top of the page, there is a drop-down menu box. Click on it and select “Oldest” then the “Done” button. You'll get his tweets from 2009 that look like they were probably written by a public relations person on staff at the Trump Organization because they mainly consisted of announcements of things like the recent publication of Trump's latest book or Trump's next guest television appearance on a late night talk show or the promotion of an upcoming latest episode of The Celebrity Apprentice. But then, starting in early 2011, Trump began expressing his political opinions but they were relatively restrained compared to his later stuff. As time went on, he delved more into personal insults along with displays of self-pity whenever he got his sensitive feelings hurt. He became nastier and nastier online.

His nasty tweeting habit continued throughout his four years as president of the United States. Twitter allowed him to get away with making the kind of tweets that would have gotten any other user on the platform suspended or even banned.

It all came to a head on January 6, 2021 when Trump used Twitter to call a rally in Washington, DC and it resulted in his supporters storming the US Capitol building. Twitter finally took action and banned Trump from the platform.

Trump probably reacted the way a heroin addict would react when suddenly being cut off from the source of the addiction—with great suffering and withdrawal. He unveiled a website called “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump” where he made his posts on a regular HTML website but that one lasted less than a month. He even tried suing Twitter (along with Facebook and YouTube, who also banned him after January 6) in an effort to get reinstated but the case got thrown out of court.

Enter Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss. They were former contestants on The Apprentice who approached Trump with this idea of creating a new social media platform especially for Trump. Truth Social was born with Litinsky and Moss being the official co-founders. Trump managed to entice Devin Nunes to leave his seat in the House of Representatives to become the CEO of this new enterprise.

There were a few hiccups for Truth Social along the way. In order to make Truth Social as close to Twitter, the people behind that platform looked at Mastodon, which is the free open source alternative to Twitter. Truth Social was built on Mastodon's open source code, which initially got Truth Social into trouble with Mastodon because it used Mastodon’s code without providing Truth Social's own source code, which is a requirement for using Mastodon's source code. Truth Social acknowledged using Mastodon's code and it ended up including a dedicated section on Truth Social called Open Source that contains a Zip archive of Mastodon's code.

When Truth Social went live in 2022 many people had a difficult time signing up to the site while the app version was initially unusable.

But then things settled down and people took out accounts on Truth Social. They made posts, which are called “truths” on that platform and shared other people's posts, which is known as “retruths.” Visitors to that platform were able to view Donald Trump's truths and retruth any of his truths that they liked.

Over time some of Trump's most outrageous truths were screenshot and shared on other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which is the main reason why I never bothered with getting my own Truth Social account.

When Elon Musk purchased Twitter and renamed it X, he reinstated a number of previously banned accounts under the guise of “free speech,” including Donald Trump's account. Amazingly, despite the reinstatement, Trump has decided to continue to post exclusively on Truth Social.

Meanwhile there were all kinds of behind the scenes dysfunction at Truth Social, such as the resignations of the chief of technology and chief of product development. Recently it was revealed that the key to Truth Social remaining in business despite not turning a profit in 2022 was through emergency loans provided by a Russian-American businessman named Anton Postolnikov, who is currently under scrutiny in a federal insider-trading and money-laundering investigation. Donald Trump, Russia, and shady business practices. That cycle has been repeated nonstop since the 1980s and it happened again in regards to Truth Social.

As for Anton Postolnikov, he has a history of setting up websites that sell dubious products like Vimax, which is supposed to provide men with longer sex and firmer erections but has led to warnings about Vimax's safety from the US Food and Drug Administration.

An accounting firm named WithumSmith+Brown was hired in early 2021 to vet the financials of Truth Social's parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group but had resigned before the year ended. That company indicated that it no longer wanted to be associated with Trump and his company. Trump Media replaced that accounting firm with BF Borgers, which has its own history of getting into trouble with regulators.

And then there were Michael and Gerald Shvartsman, two brothers who helped to fund Trump Media and who had recently pled guilty to insider trading regarding Trump Media.

By 2024 Truth Social has been in existence for nearly two years (along with plenty of drama) and it's about to make its debut on the NASDAQ. Before that happened, Truth Social became the subject of a lawsuit. The two former Apprentice contestants and co-founders of Truth Social, Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump saying that Trump was trying to drastically dilute the value of stock shares in the company, potentially depriving them of hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.

In retaliation Trump has sued Litinsky and Moss saying that they had set up the company improperly and they shouldn't get any shares, which includes the 8.6% stake that Litinsky and Moss currently have in Truth Social. Basically it was Litinsky and Moss who approached Trump with the idea of setting up Truth Social, they did the work to turn that idea into a reality, and now Trump doesn't want them to receive any kind of financial benefit for their work, claiming that they don't deserve to get paid because they did inferior work. This pattern is way similar to the ways that Trump has tried to avoid paying contractors for the work they've done on various Trump projects, which goes back decades.

With all that drama lurking in the background, the parent company of Truth Social soared in value on its IPO on the first day of trading to the point that Trump himself is now worth $7 billion with $5 billion of that tied up in Trump Media stock. This soaring in value happened despite the fact that Truth Social has lost $49 million last year and has fewer users than other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter/X. There were investments from true MAGA Trump believers, such as Mike Crispi—the founder of the Italian American Civil Rights League, host of his show on Rumble, and the 2024 New Jersey Trump Delegate—who bragged about how he “liquated my entire portfolio and put it into DJT 0.00%↑ stock. You didn't? Stay poor, liberals.”

That triumph on Wall Street turned out to be short-lived. The parent of Truth Social started its decline a week after it went public the first time and the stock price has lost $4 billion off its value.

But then it gets even better. Donald Trump's net worth has fallen by just over $2 billion in eight days due to the whole Truth Social debacle. Trump’s net worth has declined so much that he is no longer listed on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world's 500 richest people.

Of course Trump took to Truth Social accusing other social media companies and the “Radical Left Democrat Party” of using disinformation to convince people that Truth Social's value is plummeting on Wall Street.

Trump's blame of Truth Social declining stock market value on other social media companies and the “Radical Left Democrat Party” haven't done anything to reverse that company's fortune on Wall Street. When the stock market reopened on Monday after the weekend break, Truth Social's value had declined another 8%.

Truth Social's value had declined so fast that the platform's two co-founders, who are the same two co-founders who are embroiled in the lawsuit against Trump, have petitioned the court to be allowed to sell their shares in Truth Social ahead of the expiration of a six-month lockup period where they are currently not allowed to sell. I can't say that I blame them for wanting to cash out early. By April 11 the value of a share in Truth Social's parent company had declined by more than half the amount it was valued at when the stock first went public.

On April 15 the company announced a new influx of shares. While a new stock offering could help it stay afloat, the downside is that would substantially devalue existing shareholders’ stakes — including Trump's own stakes. And it means that millions of shares could be sold off. That announcement had led to the stock further tanking by 17%.

On April 16 the company announced that Truth Social was getting into streaming. That responded in the stock further1 declining by 14%. The reason for the decline: streaming is notoriously cost-intensive business in which large media corporations like Disney have struggled to turn a profit.

By April 19 the parent company of Truth Social alerted NASDAQ of what the company suspects is illegal activity driving down the price of its shares through the use of “naked” short selling. (Naked short selling involves someone selling shares they don’t own or have not borrowed. They will often then try to buy shares at a reduced price to cover themselves. This practice is generally illegal.)

On April 22 Donald Trump received a bonus of up to 36 million additional shares of Truth Social's parent company Trump Media, which would be worth more than $1.25 billion.

On April 24 Trump Media asks Congress to investigate its suspicion that illegal activity is driving down its share price. Some financial experts expressed skepticism about Trump Media's claims of market manipulation driving down the stock price. One expert said that the main problem is that short sellers want to short the stock because the stock is overvalued and it's destined to fall in price.

By April 26 the Associated Press reported that rooting for Trump to fail has literally made millions for the stock shorters.

On May 3 CNN reported that Truth Social has been seeing a decline in users despite Trump running for president and his numerous trials. CNN also reported that Trump Media's independent accounting firm BF Borgers was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with widespread fraud and running a sham audit mill.

On May 20 Truth Social posted Q1 revenue of $770,500 and net loss of $327.6 million.

Admist all of this drama, another lawsuit was filed in Florida where a board member of Truth Social's parent company named Eric Swider has been accused of being part of a corporate coup attempt by hacking one of the executives who helped bring the firm public, Patrick Orlando, and using files taken in that hacking to discredit Orlando.

Despite Donald Trump's presence on Truth Social, it has managed to attract just 5 million monthly users. That's paltry compared to Twitter, which (as of April, 2021) has over 400 million active users and Facebook, which (as of Q4 2023) has a little over 3 billion monthly active users.

Am I missing anything much by not having a Truth Social account? According to this article that was written by a Los Angeles Times reporter who spent 24 hours on Truth Social, the answer seems to be no. That article makes it sound like Donald Trump is really the only main draw to Truth Social. If he didn't post on that platform at all, it would be little more than a less-popular social media platform that caters exclusively to the far-right. Without Donald Trump's involvement, Truth Social would have probably gone the way of Parler a long time ago. As it stands right now, Truth Social has a problem with retaining users despite Donald Trump's presence on that platform.

There's a part of me that hopes that the Truth Social debacle will finally reveal Donald Trump as being the business world's equivalent of the emperor with no clothes on. But, unfortunately, he's become so skilled at convincing others that he is a successful businessman despite his numerous failures that he could still convince incredibly gullible people that he really is successful. Having a real independent media that would do exposes about Trump's real talent as a businessman would be a major first step in actually educating the general public with real solid facts about Trump's businesses. Things would've been different on the political and business scene today if the US had an actual media that cared more about informing people instead of simply chasing ratings, ad sales, revenues, and mergers.

As of this writing Truth Social still exists, but for how long remains to be seen. I'm reaching the limits of the email version of this post so I'm going to stop writing about Truth Social for now.

My blog is free to subscribe but if you want to make a comment, you’ll need to take out a paid subscription. Click on the button below for more details.