Posted on 08/10/2024 7:27:51 PM PDT by Miami Rebel
Trump Media , the social media company whose majority shareholder is former President Donald Trump, on Friday reported a net loss of more than $16 million for the most recent financial quarter, as its already meager revenue fell 30% to just $836,900.
Trump Media owns the Truth Social app, which is often used by the former president.
The stock price of Trump Media, which trades under the DJT ticker, has fallen sharply from a high of more than $71 per share shortly after began publicly trading in late March following a merger with a so-called special purpose acquisition corporation.
Trump Media stock closed at $26.21 per share Friday afternoon, a decrease of .49%.
The company has a market capitalization of nearly $5 billion, an extraordinarily high valuation given its very modest sales.
In a 10-Q filing Friday afternoon, Trump Media reported a loss of $16.37 million for the second quarter ending June 30, compared to a $22.8 million loss for the second quarter in 2023.
About half of the loss for the past quarter was due to legal expenses related to Trump Media’s merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp., the company said.
“Additionally, the Company incurred $3.1 million of IT consulting and software licensing expenses, primarily related to its software licensing agreement to power its new TV streaming service,” Trump Media said in a press release.
Revenue for the most recent quarter of $839,000 compared to $1.2 million for the same quarter last year.
“A significant portion of the decrease was attributable to a change in the revenue share with one of our advertising partners, in connection with an agreement intended to improve the Company’s short-term, pre-Business Combination financial position,” Trump Media said in its 10-Q filing.
“Additionally, revenue has varied as we selectively test a nascent advertising initiative on the Company’s Truth Social platform,” the company said.
Trump Media said it ended the quarter with $344 million in cash and cash equivalents, with no debt.
“The Company believes its strong balance sheet will enable the expansion and refinement of its new TV streaming platform, Truth+, which was launched in August 2024 on the Company’s custom-built content delivery network (‘CDN’),” Trump Media said in a press release.
“With its strong balance sheet and zero debt load, the Company believes it has sufficient working capital to fund operations for the foreseeable future,” the company said.
Donald Trump, who is the Republican presidential nominee, and his running mate Sen. JD Vance of Ohio are set to face the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in November’s election.
I'll be selling. This is an unmitigated disaster that boggles my mind. The losses don't bother me: they're common with start-ups.
But how, in the midst of the avalanche of interest in President Trump and his campaign, this company is able to report a DECLINE in revenues is beyond me. This is a $5 billion company with sales just slightly over those of a single McDonalds restaurant.
Additionally, insiders (not just President Trump) will be able to sell shares for the first time since the merger on September 20.
It's very disappointing. I wish all other longs well. I'll take my proceedss and wait on the sideline for positive momentum before recommitting.
He needs to come back to X (Twitter )
This will barely move
Honestly, I’m still perplexed as to why Trump has not come back to his Twitter account post-Elon.
Well, that cinches it! I’ll be voting for Heel’s Up come November!
*SMIRK*
If he does, it’d be a coup de grace to DJT, and I imagine shareholders would feel betrayed. Perhaps Musk could buy it out.
I hope not, but if it takes out the post-merger low of $22.84, then Katie bar the door.
I worked for Scotttade you don’t have a clue what you are talking about. The underwriters of the stock will never allow it to happen especially when they have 344 million cash on hand on debt. Save the nevertrump nonsense for another time.
Musk not buying it out.
Trump needs to get his message out or he will not win
He needs to stay on subject and not in dei
Congratulations on your career choice. Are you suggesting that a company that is hemorrhaging cash and intends to invest in new technologies would divert that cash to a buyback, which as a Scottrade professional you know requires a board resolution? Unless the board has an emergency meeting in the next 36 hours no buyback could be put in place before Monday’s opening.
And may I pick your brain for a simple math question: how long do you think the cash hoard would last if it were spent on propping up a company with a current capitalization of $5 billion?
Oh, by the way, this company was created from a SPAC. (Look it up.) THERE ARE NO UNDERWRITERS.
And even if this were a conventional IPO (it’s not) and even if there were underwriters (there are not,) in my 42 years in finance I’ve never seen underwriters attempt a price stabilization for more than a few days.
Question, not a critisism....
I heard something about boycott threats against advertisers. Is this the cause of low revenue?
[As I posted earlier this week, I took a flier by buying 1500 shares @ $26.
I’ll be selling. This is an unmitigated disaster that boggles my mind. The losses don’t bother me: they’re common with start-ups.
But how, in the midst of the avalanche of interest in President Trump and his campaign, this company is able to report a DECLINE in revenues is beyond me. This is a $5 billion company with sales just slightly over those of a single McDonalds restaurant.]
Whereas Trump is a dabbler with a very mixed business record even in businesses where there are many winners. Unfortunately for Truth Social, social media is winner-takes-all. Runners-up get nothing, or next to nothing. That’s how Yahoo went from top dog to being bought for peanuts by Verizon, ~$5b. Its revenues? ~$5b, almost 1,500x Truth Social’s. And unlike Truth Social it was profitable.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/yahoo-2q-2016-earnings-do-not-matter-either-way-195714147.html
I haven’t heard of a boycott.
Even with one it wouldn’t seem to be very hard to find conservative advertisers who’d use this platform. The problem must be that it doesn’t attract sufficient subscribers to make it worthwhile.
As I said, it was a flier.
Musk’s approach to X has been, despite his demonstrated business acumen elsewhere, that of a hyperactive hobbyist. But the end result is as you say: it’s a cash burner.
You’re undoubtedly correct about DJT. If Trump Media were to have ever succeeded it would’ve needed to come charging out of the gate with explosive growth fueled by President Trump barnstorming for it. I had hoped that it would’ve caught fire with the next upswing in the campaign’s polling results, but at this point it looks like even that wouldn’t move the needle.
When Musk bought Twitter there was talk of cross-platform communication. In other words link your Twitter account with Truth, Fakebook, Instagram, etc.
It would make sense for everyone.
Why would any counterparty do that? And Truth Social exists only because of President trump’s exile from Twitter. If at this point he agreed to post for subscribers on other platforms it would be a death knell for Trump Media. His exclusivity on it is the only reason it exists.
Trump can stay on his social media platform but his campaign should set up an account on X. Name it trumpHQ or MAGAhq and post tweets frequently.
It might be effective for outreach, but it would mark the end of Truth Social. Its exclusivity has been its selling point. It would’ve made sense if at the beginning of the campaign all donors were directed to creating accounts on it.
>> Whereas Trump is a dabbler with a very mixed business record
Really?
He’s a billionaire. Is he not? Even after sacrificing a bunch of his wealth fighting for America, he’s still worth a billion bucks. If that’s the result of a “very mixed business record”, I’ll happily aspire to having a “mixed business record” myself!
Or are you saying that he wins some, loses some? Isn’t that the nature of a risk-taking entrepreneur? Again, he’s a billionaire, so he must have won more than he lost.
Maybe you should clarify just what the hell you ARE saying, or implying.
And how about you, polymath? How do you stack up? How many billions have YOU made with your superb freepoing and never-trumper denigration skills?
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