Trump Media and Technology Group, the owner of Donald Trump’s social networking site Truth Social, lost more than $300m last quarter, according to its first earnings report as a publicly traded company.
For the three-month period that ended 31 March, the company posted a loss of $327.6m, which it said included $311m in non-cash expenses related to its merger with a company called Digital World, which was essentially a pile of cash looking for a target to merge with.
It’s an example of a special purpose acquisition company, or Spac, which can give young companies quicker and easier routes to getting their shares trading publicly.
A year earlier, Trump Media posted a loss of $210,300.
Trump Media said collected $770,500 in revenue in the first quarter, largely from its “nascent advertising initiative”. That was down from $1.1m a year earlier.
“At this early stage in the company’s development, TMTG remains focused on long-term product development, rather than quarterly revenue,” Trump Media said in its earnings news release.
Earlier this month, the company fired an auditor that federal regulators recently charged with “massive fraud”. The former president’s media company dismissed BF Borgers as its independent public accounting firm on 3 May, delaying the filing of the quarterly earnings report, according to a securities filings.
Trump Media had previously cycled through at least two other auditors – one that resigned in July 2023, and another that was terminated by the board in March, just as it was rehiring BF Borgers.
Shares of Trump Media climbed 36 cents to $48.74 in after-hours trading. The stock, which trades under the ticker symbol “DJT”, began trading on Nasdaq in March and peaked at nearly $80 in late March.