Truth Social, the conservative social media network that former President Donald Trump launched in 2022 after being banned from other platforms, lost more than $58 million and generated a mere $4.1 million in revenue last year.
The revelations about Truth Social’s current situation came in a Securities and Exchange Commission regulatory filing from Trump’s company, Trump Media & Technology Group, on Monday. The financial situation is so dire, an auditor warned in the filing, that it raises “a substantial doubt” about whether TMTG can “continue as a going concern”.
In other words, Truth Social may have to shut down, going the way of Parler ― another conservative social network that had to shutter after just a few years in business.
The news comes a week after TMTG completed a merger with a shell company, Digital World Acquisition, to go public, infusing Truth Social with $300 million. But shares in the company dropped more than 15% following Monday’s news.
To put Truth Social’s precarious finances into context, Twitter, now known as X, generated more than $660 million in revenue in the year leading up to its going public, and it generated $5 billion in the year before Elon Musk bought it and took the company private.
Per the SEC filing, all of Truth Social’s money comes from advertisers buying space on the platform, and most of its expenses involve paying interest on debt.
The biggest problem Truth Social faces is that its user base is microscopic compared to that of other social platforms. In February, it had just 494,000 monthly active users, according to statistics obtained by CNN. That’s about 150 times smaller than Twitter’s roster of active users, and 290 times smaller than Facebook’s.
Despite its small community, and despite other social platforms lifting their bans on Trump, Truth Social remains the former president’s go-to forum for attacking his opponents and issuing reactions to news events. His posts there have repeatedly landed him in hot water, forcing various judges to impose gag orders on Trump while presiding over cases against him.
Last week, Trump came under fire for posting a video on Truth Social showing an image of a hogtied President Joe Biden painted on a truck. The Biden campaign accused the post of suggesting physical harm toward the president.
“Trump is regularly inciting political violence and it’s time people take him seriously,” Michael Tyler, the campaign’s communications director, said in a statement.