Trump Media & Technology Group
Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) is a technology and media company co-founded by former U.S. President Donald Trump in February 2021, with its headquarters located in Palm Beach, Florida. The company emerged in response to Trump's conflicts with major media platforms, notably after Twitter permanently suspended his account following the January 6, 2021, insurrection. TMTG aimed to create an alternative social media platform, leading to the development of Truth Social, which launched on February 21, 2022. This application is designed to mimic Twitter, allowing users to post and share content, termed "truths" and "retruths."
Despite initial enthusiasm, Truth Social faced significant challenges, including technical issues and a slow rollout that left many users on a waiting list. The platform was modeled on Mastodon, an open-source social media platform, and had to publish its source code due to licensing requirements. TMTG has expressed intentions to grow into a broader media empire, seeking to challenge established technology giants like Disney and Amazon. However, the company has also been subject to investigations by U.S. financial regulators, and its growth has been juxtaposed with ongoing legal challenges faced by Trump. As of late 2022, Truth Social had gained millions of downloads, yet still operated with a user base smaller than other conservative platforms.
Trump Media & Technology Group
Company information
- Date founded: February 2021
- Industry: Technology and Media
- Corporate headquarters: Palm Beach, Florida
- Type: Public
Overview
Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) is a technology company founded by former American President Donald Trump. During his presidency, Trump had repeated conflicts with media companies, arguing the media portrayed him unfairly. When Twitter (changed its name to X in 2023) permanently removed his account, alleging that the President’s use of its platform had inspired violence during the protests on January 6, 2021, Trump decided to form TMTG as a replacement.
Trump and his associates publicly discussed their plans for the future of TMTG, which included growing the company into a media empire. They hoped it would disrupt the business practices of other technology giants, such as Disney, Amazon, and Netflix. However, the company’s first venture was developing and deploying Truth Social, a social media application intended to serve as a version of Twitter that welcomed former President Trump and his supporters.
Truth Social was initially launched in February 2022. However, the application experienced significant scaling issues, and its launch was changed to a small beta. Users who attempted to install the application were instead sent to a waiting list. While the platform initially failed to live up to the expectations of its creators and drew criticism for bugs and other issues, it had been downloaded millions of times by the mid-2020s.
History
TMTG is an American technology company founded in February 2021 by US President Donald Trump. During his presidency, Trump had continued disputes with the largest media companies in the United States. Most prominently, the social media giant Twitter permanently suspended the account of the former president. Trump had commonly used his Twitter account to disseminate information, attack his political rivals, and announce White House policies. However, following the riots on January 6, 2021, Twitter found that the former president’s online conduct helped incite violence. To avoid any further incitements, Trump’s account was removed.
Trump was offended by the removal of his account, accusing the social media company of violating his right to free speech. He criticized the company, stating it had intentionally silenced both Trump and the people who voted for him. Trump then announced that he would be moving his social media presence to a new platform and encouraged his voters to follow him.
Initially, many people wondered if existing conservative social media platforms, such as Parler, Gettr, and Rumble, would host the former President’s presence. However, as these small social media platforms struggled, Trump came to realize that a new platform would be necessary to replace Twitter. He launched TMTG to facilitate the launch of a new social network, entitled Truth Social. When asked about the new company, Trump stated: “I created TRUTH Social and TMTG to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech… We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced. This is unacceptable.”
As chairman of the new company, Trump announced that the TMTG planned to move beyond the development of a new social network. Trump planned for his service to disrupt the “woke” media giants, including Netflix, Disney, Apple, Google, and Amazon. The company plans to create a “non-cancellable” digital community, including streaming services, news media, and other digital content.
In 2021, TMTG announced it was planning to merge with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Digital World Acquisition Company (DWAC) to become a publicly traded business. The merger plan was met with skepticism from US financial regulators, who launched an investigation into the move. However, the merger was viewed positively by investors, and its announcement caused a significant spike in the stock price of DWAC. Throughout 2023, TMTG faced investigations by the US Securities and Exchange Commission concerning its merger with DWAC and other financial deals. Anticipating legal trouble, DWAC dismissed its CEO, Patrick Orlando.
On March 26, 2024, TMTG went public, with shares trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker DJT. The company announced its entry into the financial services sector with the launch of Truth.Fi in early 2025. Truth.Fi is a brand focusing on financial products, including investments in separately managed accounts (SMAs) and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Truth Social and Other Developments
Though TMTG had large-scale plans for a potential digital media empire, they began with the development of Truth Social. The application was modeled after Twitter, seeking to replace the service from which President Trump was removed. It allows users to post small amounts of text, which are automatically disseminated to the user’s followers. Whereas Twitter refers to these posts as “tweets,” Truth Social calls them “truths.” Users of the fledgling social media service can share the posts of other users by “retruthing,” which is similar to the “retweet” process utilized by Twitter.
TMTG launched its first major product, Truth Social, on February 21, 2022. The service’s construction was based on Mastodon, an open-source social media platform, though it was intentionally designed to mimic Twitter’s interface. Because Mastodon’s coding is required by its license to remain both free and open-source, Truth Social was later required to publish its source code on the service’s website.
Initially, it was announced that Truth Social would launch on February 21, 2022. Trump made his first post on a beta version of the application on February 16, 2022. However, it was soon revealed that the social media platform would not be ready to open to the entire public. Instead, Truth Social conducted a beta test, admitting just five hundred users. Though the application was launched on the Apple App Store on February 21, most people who attempted to register were automatically sent to a waiting list.
Within the following weeks, both traffic to TruthSocial.com and application downloads rapidly dropped. Truth Social was initially criticized by users for claiming it would be a platform based on free expression and avoiding any kind of censorship, while the application’s terms of service forbid any users from disparaging, harming, or tarnishing the opinion of the site. The service also retained the right to remove the accounts of individuals who harmed its reputation or posted criticism. It was also criticized for continued technological problems, low numbers of users, and creating accounts for major brands without the permission of those brands.
In June 2022, as Trump navigated multiple legal issues and the company received subpoenas from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other agencies related to these cases against the former president, Trump stepped down as TMTG's chairman. Meanwhile, the company continued to see growth in Truth Social, which experienced a 550 percent increase in downloads in August 2022 after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided Trump's residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. By that point, Truth Social had been downloaded three million times; while this represented faster growth than the platform had seen for most of 2022, Truth Social still had far fewer users than other conservative social media platforms at that time.
In January 2025, Meta Platforms agreed to a $25 million settlement with former President Trump over a lawsuit concerning his suspension from Facebook in 2021. Of this, $22 million was allocated to fund Trump's presidential library.
Bibliography
Alexander, Sophie. “SPAC Merging with Trump’s Media Firm Gets SEC Information Request.” Aljazeera, 6 Dec. 2021, www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/12/6/spac-merging-with-trumps-media-firm-gets-sec-information-request. Accessed 30 Jan. 2025.
Balevic, Katie, and Kelsey Vlamis. “Meta Agrees to Pay $25 Million in Settlement to Trump, with Most Going to His Presidential Library.” Business Insider, 29 Jan. 2025, www.businessinsider.com/trump-settles-lawsuit-meta-million-presidential-library-2025-1. Accessed 30 Jan. 2025.
Brandon, John. “I Finally Tested Donald Trump’s ‘Truth Social’ App and Here’s What I Discovered.” Forbes, 4 Apr. 2022, www.forbes.com/sites/johnbbrandon/2022/03/31/i-finally-tested-donald-trumps--truth-social-and-heres-what-i-discovered. Accessed 30 Jan. 2025.
Gilbert, David. “Trump’s Truth Social Has Seen a Huge Spike since FBI Search.” VICE News, 19 Aug. 2022, www.vice.com/en/article/4ax3k3/truth-social-downloads-spike-fbi-search. Accessed 30 Jan. 2025.
McCluskey, Megan. “What to Know about Digital World, the Company Funding Trump’s New Social Media Platform ‘TRUTH Social.’” TIME, 7 Dec. 2021, time.com/6125995/truth-social-trump-funding-digital-world. Accessed 30 Jan. 2025.
Schnell, Mychael. “Trump Media Company Inks Deal with Video Platform Rumble.” The Hill, 14 Dec. 2021, thehill.com/homenews/media/585838-trump-media-company-inks-deal-with-video-platform-rumble. Accessed 30 Jan. 2025.
“Trump Teases First Post on New Twitter-Like TRUTH Social Site.” New York Post, 16 Feb. 2022, nypost.com/2022/02/16/trump-teases-first-post-on-new-twitter-like-truth-social. Accessed 30 Jan. 2025.
Woelfel, Joe. “Digital World, Merging with Trump Media, Soars for a Second Day.” Barron’s, www.barrons.com/articles/digital-world-trump-media-stock-51634893436. Accessed 30 Jan. 2025.