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Trump’s Truth Social Has Lost $73M Since Launch, New Filing Shows (www.hollywoodreporter.com)

submitted 11 months ago by ZeroCool@feddit.ch to c/politics@lemmy.world

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[-] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 145 points 11 months ago

The funniest thing about Truth Social is that it’s a fork of Mastodon.

Mastodon.world cost $1200 to run last month. And running it was hobby-level effort by a guy who admins lemmy.world AND has a proper day job and family.

They’re selling ads and have a couple web devs to tweak their version of Mastodon, and they can’t even pull in enough ad revenue to make that work. 😆

Fucking clown shoes.

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 44 points 11 months ago

Just means it's another grift where someone is getting paid but the people doing the actual work probably aren't.

[-] Sanctus@lemmy.world 18 points 11 months ago

But how does Mastadon embezzle millions from their product and only have a cost of $1200? Thats impossible, I don't see any of them hiring shitty football players to be assistants so they must be doing something wrong.

[-] Takina_sOldPairTM@lemmy.world 18 points 11 months ago

TIL lmao

[-] Sho@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

It's so nice to see someone else use "fucking clown shoes" as an insult. Made my day 🤣

[-] Tigbitties@kbin.social 10 points 11 months ago

Holy shit that's funny.

[-] Whiskeyomega@kbin.social 7 points 11 months ago

How the hell is M.World costing $1200 a month ! ? Its not that heavy on activity. Uni or Mastodonapp.uk probably has more and costs less to run. I mean I run cupoftea.social with 5000 users at £80 a month.

[-] TheGreatFox@lemm.ee 19 points 11 months ago

They openly post their finances, you can take a look: https://blog.mastodon.world/

The $1200 is for both mastodon.world and lemmy.world combined, but yeah. Most of it (80%) is going towards Hetzner, which is their cloud storage/hosting provider.

[-] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 44 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Clone Twitter, a famously unprofitable business, then remove cool celebrities and fill it with Nazis, misogynists, and other people that advertisers and their customers hate.

Profit?

[-] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 15 points 11 months ago

Why clone it when you can do the same by just buying it?

[-] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Donald Trump trying to buy Twitter

[-] NegativeLookBehind@kbin.social 6 points 11 months ago

I just don’t understand how this wouldn’t work out….

[-] can@sh.itjust.works 5 points 11 months ago

twice

[-] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

Elon: “I bet it would work with video chat and Venmo bolted on.”

[-] CMDR_Horn@lemmy.ml 34 points 11 months ago

The amount of evidence it has gathered for future FBI investigations?…priceless

[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 3 points 11 months ago

It would be interesting if someone could calculate the amount of prison time and damages that came as a result of people using his platform.

[-] capital@lemmy.world 31 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I know people who ostensibly voted for this chode because of his businesses acumen.

[-] RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world 23 points 11 months ago

to whom?

who got the money?

[-] gregorum@lemm.ee 21 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Since launching in early 2022, former President Donald Trump‘s Truth Social took in $3.7 million in net sales, and lost $73 million.

The loss is, presumably, the amount of money they spent that year in operating costs, etc.

In business, a loss is when a company’s expenditures are more than its income. It’s not like the money is “lost” as in “missing” or “lost in a bet” at a casino. Truth Social spent more money than it made in 2022, which means they operated at a loss for 2022.

[-] skulblaka@kbin.social 25 points 11 months ago

I find it hard to believe that a website the size of Truth Social (i.e. pretty small.... They have a total of 2 million users, a generous 15% of them might be active. It isn't Twitter) managed to rack up $73 million in costs over a single year of operation.

I see two possibilities. Either whoever is hosting them is charging them a stupendously exorbitant amount of money to keep their website online, because they hate them or because they know they have Trump & Co in a vise and can charge whatever they want; or else a lot of "operating costs" look like the inside of various pockets. Perhaps both. Probably both, now that I think about it, though I suspect the latter quite a bit more.

[-] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 16 points 11 months ago

I run an instance of Lemmy with 300 users and it costs me about $223 per year.

They have 6000x more users. So it should cost them about..... $1.5m

(Of course I know that's completely unrealistic and things don't scale like that. Just a fun exercise.)

But yeah that's way too much for a site that only serves 2 million people.

[-] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 9 points 11 months ago

Agree this math adds up like it was done by Trumps property appraisers.

[-] buddhabound@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

It's easy to do if it's a grift for paying kickbacks by paying well over market rate for services that you can pad the numbers on easily.

[-] gregorum@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago

There are a number of details in the article which explain where the money went. Did you read it?

[-] grabyourmotherskeys@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

There is nothing explaining expenditures at all. They state they downsized and eliminated development of VOD. They also said they probably cannot secure additional financing.

I don't find it that hard to believe they burned through that cash. It's a lot of money but they probably signed massive deals with overpriced, incompetent consultants that subcontracted to overpriced, incompetent outsourcing.

They probably also went nuts on infrastructure again through a few layers of b.s., each of which took a cut.

Anyone who thought a site like this was going to be profitable in first few years, or really ever, is nuts. I mean the man ran a casino into the ground.

[-] Nerrad@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

So they've paid Trump $73 M for exclusivity and brand. Got it.

[-] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 21 points 11 months ago

Those are rookie numbers. Some guy lost 500 times more on another social media platform in a shorter timespan.

[-] Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

Serious question, because I refuse to even subject my eyeballs to that dime-store-knockoff: Is anyone besides Trump himself actually posting on there?

All I ever see is his own drivel. I've posted youtube videos with more likes. I've never seen anyone not named Trump even post there.

How is a site that exclusively caters to the stream of consciousness of exactly one person supposed to make money? Especially when that stream of consciousness is going to be covered by every major network anyway? Even if you're a die-hard MAGA supporter, there's literally no reason to go onto the site. Just watch Newsmax. They'll cover it anyway.

It baffles me that he even got funding for this. I don't care what people think of his politics; there was never a scenario where this business model was ever going to work.

[-] Betazed@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 11 months ago

I've never been on there, but I am inclined to think that there is at least a small group of die hards that post there. I have seen quotes from other posters on there on various news articles. Interestingly, Joe Biden (or at least his campaign staffers) now have a presence on there which I find hysterical. I think that's basically tantamount to trying to convert the Pope to pastafarianism but maybe a few people over there haven't had their brains fall out completely (not that Biden is the ideal president but he's far better than Trump).

[-] Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

My guess is that Biden's presence is simply just opposition research.

[-] Teon@kbin.social 6 points 11 months ago

LOL! Amazing businessman. LOL!

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 5 points 11 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The numbers were revealed in a new financial disclosure from TMTG’s SPAC merger partner Digital World Acquisition Corp.

The filing indicates that, if TMTG is unable to complete the merger with DWAC, and receive the pot of money on the line, it may not survive.

The amended S-4 filing also broke out a number of updates and risk factors related to the company, including the fact that the long-planned streaming video service appears to be off the table for now.

The filing makes no mention of the service (which was teased with conservative comedy specials and “Trump-specific programming”) except in relation to layoffs.

“This action followed a review of all departments, most significantly impacted TMTG’s streaming video on demand (SVOD) and infrastructure teams.”

In May of 2022, Trump agreed to make Truth Social his primary social platform, agreeing not to post on other platforms until 6 hours after he sends a “Truth.” However, since initially signing the deal with TMTG, Elon Musk acquired Twitter and reinstated Trump’s account (he also rebranded it as “X.”)

The original article contains 576 words, the summary contains 174 words. Saved 70%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[-] theodewere@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

management has substantial doubt that TMTG will have sufficient funds to meet its liabilities as they fall due, including liabilities related to promissory notes previously issued by TMTG

i hear another Trump Bankruptcy Train 'a comin down the tracks wooo woooo

[-] mibo80@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago

$73millions to manipulate your followers through unhinged tirades against your political enemies and destabilize a nations government - Putin says, "worth it!"

[-] Drusas@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

Good.

this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023

327 points (96.8% liked)

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