Is this an early prediction of the US presidential election in early November?
On Monday, the share price of Donald Trump’s Truth Media — which houses the loss-making Truth Social platform — hit a new low since his deal with Digital World Acquisition Corp went through in March: US$22.24, down more than 3.5% in the day and barely a third of its peak price of US$66 in late March. That was when Trump held a small but consistent average lead over Joe Biden in national presidential election polls.
As Crikey predicted back in March, the share price has proved a useful barometer of Trump’s political fortunes. When Biden narrowed the gap to less than 1% in April, the share price plummeted to its previous low, US$22.84. In May, as Trump again widened his average lead, the price soared back above US$50. The price spiked again to nearly US$40 when Trump and Biden debated, exposing the president’s frailties and starting the weeks-long period of growing pressure on Biden to withdraw from the race. (The price also rallied 32% when Trump survived an assassination attempt.)
The last peak, more than US$41, was in the week before Biden pulled out of the presidential race. Since then it’s been a steady decline, by more than 40%, as Kamala Harris seamlessly replaced Biden, leaving Trump visibly flailing. Last week, the shares fell more than 9% even as the US stock market had its biggest week since last November.
Trump remains — for now, given he has to hold his shares for six months — the majority owner of Trump Media & Technology. And Truth Social, Trump’s own social media platform, is the company’s main asset. The fact Trump himself has gone back to Twitter/X in recent days, and appeared on that platform in a risible “interview” with right-wing tech billionaire Elon Musk a week ago, said all that needed to be said about the value of Truth Social. The platform is probably now best known for the Trump campaign using it to claim he would deliver a “unified Reich“.
In its most recent corporate filings, Truth Social revealed that in the June quarter it lost US$16 million. Its user numbers have declined from 3.26 million users at its launch in 2022 to just over 2 million in June.
