Truth Social's parent company just posted a loss that makes its revenue number look very small.
For its fiscal second quarter, Trump Media & Technology Group reported a loss of more than $238 million, while bringing in less than $2 million in revenue. That is far worse than the nearly $20 million loss it reported in the same quarter last year.
Most of that loss came from assets losing value on paper, not from the company spending money. More than $190 million of it was tied to digital assets, pledged digital assets, and equity securities, which are stocks the company owns.
Revenue did grow, though it still looks small: the company reported $1.7 million in revenue, up 89% from a year earlier, and most of that came from advertising on Truth Social. An 89% jump is a strong percentage, but it starts from a tiny base.
The cost of running the business, known as operating expenses, came to over $165 million, up roughly 275%. Chief Financial Officer Phillip Juhan pointed to digital asset price swings as a main reason: "Our operating expenses are largely impacted by the price volatility of digital assets."
The big expense number includes the effect of digital asset prices moving around, and those swings can make the accounting loss grow or shrink.
There is also pressure on the audience side. The New York Times reported that Truth Social's traffic fell sharply during the summer, which matters for a company that depends on advertising dollars because the main source of revenue gets harder to grow if fewer people show up.
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Trump Media did not start out as a crypto and fusion company. It started after social media platforms suspended Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, and Truth Social was its first product.
It went public through a SPAC merger, a shell company that exists to take a private business to the stock market, and started trading in 2024 on the Nasdaq under the ticker DJT. Since then, it has branched out into crypto, financial services, and fusion power.
That is a lot to track for a company whose revenue is still only a few million dollars.
The crypto part is getting smaller.
The fusion part is getting more attention, and McGurn called the pending merger with TAE, a fusion energy firm, "the single most important driver of long-term value for this company." The scale of that bet is easy to miss, because no commercial fusion plant produces electricity yet.
The company is also trying to sell its data through Truth API, a service that lets outside companies plug into Truth Social. It has lined up more than 10 customer agreements, mostly with high-frequency trading firms that use software to move quickly, and those clients pay between $60,000 and $100,000 per month.
From a distance, DJT still looks like a social media company. Look closer, and it is a social media company plus crypto prices, a data service, and a fusion dream.
The stock closed down 8% on Monday. That mix is what makes it hard to value.
A big chunk of this quarter's loss came from asset price swings, so the next quarter could look very different if digital asset prices move again. For anyone with a portfolio, there is a broader point here.
A stock is not the same as its name. It is the bundle of businesses and bets behind the ticker.
The question is whether you know what you actually own.
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