"I mentioned last week that Truth Social — Trump’s social network — only had a bit more revenue than TPM. And needless to say, TPM doesn’t have a multi-billion dollar stock valuation. (If anyone disagrees on this point, contact me.) Today the company released its first 8-K, basically one of the many SEC-mandated disclosures for public companies in which lying means committing a crime. There’s a bit more there on the inflows and outflows. TS brought in about $4.1 million last year and spent $58 million. So that means that TS had about 30% more revenue than TPM and roughly 20 times the expenses. Not great! There’s some other interesting details, like the fact that $39 million of that $58 million went to interest payments. Go figure.
These data points are pretty good evidence that this company is a joke. And they make for good fun. But it’s not proof. A social network in its early stages can be bleeding lots of money and still be legitimately worth a ton of money. This isn’t just hypothetical. Facebook had already become a force of nature before Mark Zuckerberg turned his attention to monetizing the engine of value he created. So there was a time when Facebook was also spending way more money than it made and investors were dying to buy in.
Those who did made tons of money.
So the revenue and expenses aren’t the proof. But the proof is there.
In the 8-K, if you go down to the fourth paragraph under Overview, and then later in the section on Key Operating Metrics, you find this sentence (and others) …
At this juncture in its development, TMTG believes that adhering to traditional key performance indicators, such as signups, average revenue per user, ad impressions and pricing, or active user accounts including monthly and daily active users, could potentially divert its focus from strategic evaluation with respect to the progress and growth of its business.
A bit later it notes that not only will it not rely on these metrics but that it may cost too much to collect or report them …
TMTG may find it challenging or cost-prohibitive to implement such effective controls and procedures and may never collect, monitor, or report any or certain key operating metrics.
To sum it all up we get this …
TMTG does not currently, and may never, collect, monitor or report certain key operating metrics used by companies in similar industries
In other words, Truth Social doesn’t collect or report the key value metrics that the value of a social network is based on. And it probably never will."
