Forbes Reporter Zach Everson joined Brittany Lewis on 'Forbes Newsroom' to discuss Truth Social.
READ MORE: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2024/04/15/trump-media-technology-group-stock-mar-a-lago/?sh=290be4456f91
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READ MORE: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2024/04/15/trump-media-technology-group-stock-mar-a-lago/?sh=290be4456f91
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Joining me now is my colleague, Forbes staff writer, Zach Everson.
00:03 Zach, thanks so much for joining me.
00:04 Thanks for having me, Brittany.
00:06 You and I have been talking about Truth Social ever since its parent company went public last
00:12 month and the social media platform had a celebratory party at Mar-a-Lago last week.
00:17 What can you tell us?
00:18 The company celebrated itself as the stock price was plummeting down about 60% from its high.
00:27 They had a party at Mar-a-Lago to celebrate the company's success.
00:30 Trump addressed a group of people there saying, "Remember, we have no debt.
00:34 We have over $200 billion in cash."
00:36 In other words, that sucker can stay for a long time.
00:38 So stock price be damned, all is well with Trump Media and Technology Group.
00:43 How successful is Truth Social?
00:47 I mean, was this celebration warranted?
00:49 Because I want to read some of your reporting.
00:51 You've reported that Truth Shares closed the day of the party down nearly 60%
00:56 from the day that the company went public.
00:58 Was that detail mentioned at the party?
01:00 Not on the audio that I heard.
01:03 That's an excellent question.
01:04 There were some snippets.
01:07 I sadly was not invited to the party.
01:09 And there were some audio snippets that were posted online on social media.
01:14 So that's where I got the quotes from.
01:15 But I did not hear any mention of that.
01:17 I mean, honestly, given the company's well-documented problems
01:24 and including its lack of users and the other problems it has coming to market,
01:30 I still think it actually should be celebrating $32
01:33 because I think a lot of people would consider that a very high valuation
01:37 for what's hiding behind the curtain there.
01:39 Let's talk about the money a little bit.
01:40 How much are Donald Trump's shares in Truth Social worth?
01:44 Last I checked, which would be Monday night,
01:48 they were worth about $2 billion, which is good.
01:51 But it's also far from the peak, which was about $6.3 billion just a couple of weeks ago.
01:56 And we are seeing the stock price, last I checked,
01:59 it was going down today, Tuesday as well.
02:01 So it's $2 billion and dropping.
02:04 In a Forbes article, I don't believe it was your piece,
02:08 someone described that as a, quote, "bloodbath."
02:11 Did Donald Trump, I know he didn't mention that at the party, from your knowledge,
02:15 but what else did he talk about while speaking
02:18 and addressing the crowd at the Truth Social Mar-a-Lago party?
02:22 So he boasted about Truth Social's ability to get his political messaging out there.
02:28 And in 2015, 2016, it was all about how Trump's business interests were not gonna
02:33 interfere at all with his political ones.
02:35 They would be separated.
02:36 And now that wall has been smashed like a Capitol window.
02:40 And we're seeing just complete overlap of that.
02:43 And Trump said that he's used Truth Social to endorse about 200 candidates.
02:48 They've almost all won their races.
02:50 He's only endorsing on Truth, exclusively on Truth.
02:53 He hasn't won 100% of the races.
02:56 He's working at about an 80% clip.
02:58 But it was very much like, this is something,
03:01 this is a company that we can use to get our political messaging out there.