It can't possibly cost that much to operate a mediocre mastodon server with under a million monthly users? What are they spending all that money on?
Listen, you add a bunch of employees, some of them executives and a nice office with a caffeteria and you get easily over this number.
I think what people get wrong is what is profit for Truth Social. People who own and operate it do not think about profit as the money they get from the platform directly or through advertising, the profit is in having an alternative social circle where they can gather their follower base and reach them without being impeded by "censorship" from a platform like Twitter (sorry, X is just a ridiculous name).
In times past billionaires would keep their own newspapers even if unprofitable on paper just because they could create their own spin on the current events. That ability to control the narrative can be worth more than the cost of propping up a failing enterprise.
If you understand this, you might find that this thing actually is quite profitable.
Edit: Attempt to answer unsarcastically (last 3 months):
Regulatory settlement: $10,000,000
Legal investigations expense: $388,652
Franchise tax expense: $50,000
So the majority of their losses are (one time?) legal expenses.
Whoah. For 6 months ended June 30, "Legal investigations expense" is $11M.
Is Truth Social basically paying Trump's ongoing legal costs?
Would that surprise anyone, Truth users included?
I get to thinking, “who is stupid enough to be doing this?” And admittedly without any evidence, I then wonder if this is what “being funded by foreign interests” looks like.
We know about the $100 billion dollar Saudi arms deal that Kushner inserted himself in after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. We know he personally backed Saudi Arabi in their conflict with Qatar. We know Kushner failed to disclose he owed around a billion dollars on failed investments in real estate.
Now after Kushner leaves government, MBS overrode his advisors to hand over $2 billion of state investment to Kushner's newly established fund.
What happened there?
Nixon and Kissigner went behind the back of the sitting president to torpedo his peace talks with North Vietnam. Basically they commited high treason (secretly conferring with the enemy) and Nixon admitted as much. Decades later Kissinger is still considered a role model of a diplomat in some circles.
That example was picked so as not to kick off a political discussion. I'm
2. But that doesn't mean "X is a foreign Y" isn't still significant or also wrong.
3. And just for the record, I'm actually a Disenfranchised American without the right to vote, aka. Canadian.
Honestly, why wouldn't he be?
I think the mistake you're making is presuming that a role model of a diplomat is determined by your notion of morality. The definition of "diplomacy" is "spoken or written communication by representatives of states (such as leaders and diplomats) intended to influence events in the international system", and the job description of a diplomat is "a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution (...) to conduct diplomacy."
Knowing this, and knowing a bit of Kissinger's legacy, it's hard to disagree that he's one of the most successful and influential diplomats in history. He's been directly involved in all the critical events that determined the course of humanity during the 20th century, and he personally influenced or determined their outcome.
You might argue over your views on morality and Kissinger's legacy, but it is not possible to reject the fact that Kissinger is perhaps the top diplomat of the 20th century.
Other than that I fully appreciate that morality has no place in international relations.
Would it be possible for Truth Social to be just a very public money laundering front?
Especially now that he's unbanned from Twitter, where he has a significantly larger audience...but continues to post on TS where he is more or less the only thing keeping it active at all.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/spac-returns-remaining...
But yeah, seriously, it's a _Trump_ company. Where do you _think_ the money is going?