Trump’s Shrinking Engagement on Truth Social Bodes Ill for Digital World Shares
27.12.2023 - 16:53
/ wccftech.com
/ Donald Trump
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Trump's X-like echo chamber of sorts, the Truth Social platform, is not living up to the expectations of the former US President, as per an exhaustive analysis conducted by Axios. This situation, characterized by user engagement that appears in terminal decline, does not bode well for the future prospects of the SPAC Digital World, which is slated to take the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) public in 2024.
For the benefit of those who might not be aware, the former US President owns around 90 percent of the Trump Media and Technology Group, the entity behind the Truth Social app. Initially, Digital World had valued TMTG at around $875 million. However, back in April, the 2024 Republican Presidential frontrunner had marked down the worth of his TMTG stake to between $5 million and $25 million.
TMTG's Truth Social app uses a Soapbox frontend and a customized, open-source version of Mastodon at its backend. As per an analysis by Axios that leverages data sourced from the Trump Twitter Archive, the former US President's original tweets (or X posts after Elon Musk's rebranding) attracted an average of 206,000 likes in November 2020. In contrast, Trump's likes per post on Truth Social averaged just around 24,000 in November 2022 and a paltry 18,000 in November 2023. This declining trend of activity does not engender much confidence in Digital World's bullish thesis, especially as Truth Social's entire raison d'être has been largely nullified ever since Elon Musk unbanned Donald Trump on X in late 2022.
Trump currently faces charges in four criminal cases. What's more, Digital World itself is facing federal investigations for improper disclosures pertaining to its merger negotiations with Trump Media and Technology Group. These developments have held up the proposed merger between the SPAC and Truth Social's parent entity. In a fresh filing on the 06th of December, Digital World announced that it has again extended the merger consummation deadline by three months. Under the terms of its amended merger agreement, the SPAC can enforce such a delay up to four times, with each extension granting a 3-month reprieve. Going forward, Digital World will only be able to exercise this right a further two additional times.
Digital World shares are up 41 percent over the past six months. However, the stock is down around 81 percent relative to its peak closing price of $97.54 in March 2022.