Truth Social made Trump richer and gave him a new megaphone. But it’s struggling as a social media site
When he’s not raising horses or working at a construction site, 28-year-old Nick Mirtschink says he spends “a lot” of time on Truth Social, the social media platform started by Donald Trump.
So does Bree Duke, a retiree from northwest Georgia, who said she regularly checks in with Trump’s frequent posts, called “truths.”
“I love it,” Duke told CNN. “I have it on my TV, and I have it on my phone.”
Mirtschink and Duke shared their glowing reviews of the app while attending Trump’s recent rally in Rome, Georgia, where regular users of Truth Social were easy to come by. Outside of his MAGA movement, though, the social media site is struggling to find a wider audience. It is hemorr*****g users, and its traffic has plummeted. There were roughly 860,000 accounts active on the site as of November – a tiny blip compared with more mainstream platforms.But as Trump’s foray as a social media mogul enters its third year, the app’s long-term viability – and purpose – remain unclear. Truth Social is not a serious threat to compete with, let alone eclipse, X, Facebook or YouTube – it’s not among the 100 most downloaded social media applications in the Apple App store – nor has it separated itself as their conservative alternative. Trump Media’s management warned last year that the company was at risk of insolvency without a merger, and most analysts are skeptical of its current valuation above $6 billion.
“It’s grossly overvalued,” Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida, told CNN this week. “It qualifies as a meme stock for which the price is divorced from fundamental value.”It should be called Trump Social, instead of Truth Social. It's like as if one of the influencers on Tik Tok or Instagram or YouTube had enough capital to create their own social media business devoted solely to themselvesInstead, the sky-high appraisal appears closely tied to Trump’s political comeback attempt. But Truth Social has not proved it can survive, let alone thrive, unless the nation’s gaze is affixed on the site’s most famous user.
“Truth Social’s clout is driven very much if not entirely by Donald Trump’s popularity,” said Josephine Lukito, who researches the intersection of politics and social media at the University of Texas at Austin. “Without him, I don’t think there’s a viable path forward for it.”