President Donald Trump is selling early access to his Truth Social post, and despite the legally questionable move, his company is still bleeding millions. Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of Truth Social, told investors on Monday that its third-quarter revenue tripled from a year earlier, The Washington Post reports, thanks largely to subscriptions, including a service that sells fast access to the president’s top posts.
The company brought in just $3 million for the quarter, with $1.8 million of it coming from subscriptions to its Truth+ streaming platform and the Truth API. That service, launched in August, gives paying customers instant access to Trump’s Truth Social posts, and it has already come under legal scrutiny.
On paper, the quarter's revenue looks healthy, with Trump Media reporting $409.7 million in net income, after a $54.8 million loss the previous year. However, nearly all of the earnings came from its crypto and stock holdings, which gained $496.1 million, which the company itself described as “noncash.” Set those gains and some other costs aside, and the core business lost $12.3 million, by its own accounting, per the WaPo report.
The company’s stock, widely treated as a stand-in for Trump himself, sank to a record low last week after Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress. Democrats in Congress have also vowed to investigate Trump’s businesses over allegations of corruption. Interim chief executive Kevin McGurn told investors they have nothing to be concerned about. “While the market was trading on headlines, the underlying business didn’t flinch,” he said, adding that the slide had no effect on the balance sheet. The company pointed to $2.5 billion in total assets.
Advertising also got a mention, including a $175,000 campaign for Freedom 250, an entity within the National Park Foundation. Key Trump fundraiser Meredith O’Rourke happens to sit on the boards of both Trump Media and the foundation.
The earnings call comes ahead of the company’s plans for a $6 billion merger with a nuclear fusion power firm, TAE Technologies. Shareholders are set to vote on the $6 billion merger on Dec. 14, and Trump’s trust, which owns 41 percent of the company, has already agreed to back it.
Fusion power is not yet commercially available, though Silicon Valley has invested billions into it. McGurn told Axios last month that the one thing that could knock the platform out of the game was energy. “So we went out, and we found an energy company,” he said.
