Why Truth Social Hosted A Party At Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago

Forbes

Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, celebrated its success with a party at Trump’s tony Palm Beach club Mar-a-Lago on Thursday night. The event kicked off shortly after Trump Media closed at $32.41, down nearly 60% from its high of $79.38 on March 26, the day the company went public. Forbes staff writer Zach Everson joins Brittany Lewis on "Forbes Talks" to discuss.   Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2024/04/15/trump-media-technology-group-stock-mar-a-lago/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00 Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes Breaking News. Joining me now is my colleague,

00:07 Forbes staff writer, Zach Everson. Zach, thanks so much for joining me.

00:11 Thanks for having me, Brittany.

00:13 You and I have been talking about Truth Social ever since its parent company went public

00:17 last month and the social media platform had a celebratory party at Mar-a-Lago last week.

00:23 What can you tell us?

00:26 The company celebrated itself as the stock price was plummeting down about 60 percent

00:32 from its high. They had a party at Mar-a-Lago to celebrate the company's success. Trump

00:37 addressed a group of people there saying, remember, we have no debt. We have over 200

00:41 billion in cash. In other words, that sucker can stay for a long time. So stock price be

00:46 damned. All is well with Trump Media and Technology Group.

00:51 How successful is Truth Social? I mean, was this celebration warranted? Because I want

00:55 to read some of your reporting. You've reported that Truth Shares closed the day of the party

01:00 down nearly 60 percent from the day that the company went public. Was that detail mentioned

01:06 at the party?

01:08 Not on the audio that I heard. That's an excellent question. I did. There were some snippets.

01:13 I sadly was not invited to the party. And there were some audio snippets that were posted

01:19 online on social media. So that's where I got the quotes from. But I did not hear any

01:23 mention of that. I mean, only honestly, given the company's well-documented problems and

01:31 including its like lack of users and the other problems it has coming to market, I still

01:37 think it actually should be celebrating thirty two dollars, because I think a lot of people

01:40 would consider that a very high valuation for what's hiding behind the curtain there.

01:45 Let's talk about the money a little bit. How much are Donald Trump's shares in Truth Social

01:50 worth?

01:52 Last I checked, which would be Monday night, they were worth about two billion dollars,

01:57 which is good. But it's also far from the peak, which was about six point three billion

02:01 dollars just a couple of weeks ago. And we are seeing the stock price last I checked.

02:05 It was going down today at Tuesday as well. So it's two billion in dropping.

02:11 In a Forbes article, I don't believe it was your piece. Someone described that as a, quote,

02:17 bloodbath. Did Donald Trump I know he didn't mention that at the party, from your knowledge.

02:22 But what else did he talk about while speaking and addressing the crowd at the Truth Social

02:26 Mar-a-Lago party?

02:28 So he boasted about Truth Social's ability to get his political messaging out there.

02:34 And, you know, in 2015, 2016, it was all about how Trump's business interests were not going

02:39 to interfere at all with his political ones. They would be separated. And now, you know,

02:44 that that wall has been smashed like a Capitol window. And we're seeing just complete overlap

02:49 of that. And Trump said that he's used Truth Social to endorse about 200 candidates.

02:55 They've almost all won their races. He's only endorsing on truth exclusively on truth. He

03:00 hasn't won 100 percent of the races. They've he's working at about an 80 percent clip.

03:05 But it was it was very much like this is something this is a company that we can use to get our

03:10 political messaging out there.

03:12 How good of a vehicle is Truth Social at political messaging? Because when it was made, it was

03:17 supposed to be almost like sold as a conservative Twitter. Twitter has millions upon millions

03:24 of users. Truth Social, I believe, around seven million. So how powerful is it?

03:31 It's fine because everything you post on Truth Social ends up on other sites. I mean, I have

03:34 a Truth Social account. I don't check it often, but usually within five minutes of Trump posting

03:39 a truth, as they're calling them, I know what it is because it just it gets picked up everywhere

03:44 and shared. So Trump isn't hurting for a megaphone. You know, he could be writing. He could be

03:49 hand scrawling notes and somebody would be taking screenshots and they'd be going viral.

03:54 So now let's take a wider look at this party. Who was on the guest list? Who was in attendance?

04:01 There were a lot of executives from the company. Devin Nunes, the former California congressman

04:06 turned CEO, was there. He spoke to the crowd. A few board members there. Linda McMahon,

04:13 who had been the small business administrator in the Trump administration. Donald Trump

04:17 Jr. Kash Patel, who had also been in the Trump administration, was there as well. Former

04:23 board member and former golf club, Trump Golf Club manager Dan Scavino was there. And then

04:30 there were some other kind of celebrities on in Trump world. Lee Greenwood was there.

04:35 John Voight and Larry Elder, who would run for governor of California as a Republican

04:41 last time and who ran for president as well, didn't do all that well this time because

04:46 I actually forgot he had ran for president. So I was reporting out this article.

04:51 Aside from the very obvious Trump connection, was there a reason why Mar-a-Lago was picked

04:56 for the venue?

04:57 I asked. They they wouldn't say, you know, I reached out to the Trump organization. They

05:02 didn't get back to me. Trump media just said that it followed all necessary rules and regulations

05:07 with the choice. You know, I had asked, were there any alternative, any other venues they're

05:11 looking at? You know, usually when you're booking an event, you might get quotes from

05:14 a few venues. They didn't answer that. I'm going to expect that. We don't suspect that

05:20 probably wasn't the case, but we don't know for sure.

05:23 Did Trump media have to pay to be there then?

05:28 Don't know. It seems likely it seems like a really good revenue stream for the former

05:33 president. You know, he is. He's not known for giving away things for free. He certainly

05:38 charges his political committees and those of allies to use his businesses. In this case,

05:44 he's somewhat charging himself because the less money. The less money Trump media has,

05:51 the less his stock might be worth. But I don't think it's really you know, it's not a not

05:54 a not a one for one deal. So whatever money he can get out of out of Trump media, he's

05:58 probably happy to get it, especially with his shares locked up for another few months.

06:02 You know, getting paid for a ballroom rental or in this case, a poolside rental is money

06:06 he can get right away from the company.

06:09 So essentially what you're saying, if Mar-a-Lago was paid for the event, the money is directly

06:13 going into Trump's pocket.

06:17 That is most likely the case.

06:19 And you mentioned that he has been making other revenue streams. What are the unique

06:23 ways he's been making money over the past few months?

06:26 Oh, boy. You know, this this party seemed rather boring compared to the other ones.

06:31 There was the sale of the Trump NFTs, the latest round of which actually had a physical

06:36 version that included scraps from the suit he wore while getting his mugshot in Fulton

06:41 County. There were the Trump sneakers, the ones in gold that kind of looked like something

06:47 Apollo Creed might wear or cover Lang right where.

06:51 And then there was also the Trump Bible that he was he's hawking with Lee Greenwood, which

06:55 has been his latest venture, where they're charging 60 dollars for the God bless the

06:59 USA Bible.

07:01 So post party, we're almost a week out from that party. How is truth social looking? Let

07:08 us know.

07:10 It's a good thing that through the party then and not now because things keep getting worse.

07:14 But again, I still still probably valued it more than what it should be.

07:18 And is there any indication things could be getting better or has it just been a downward

07:23 plummet since it went public in March?

07:26 It's been a pretty straight downward plummet. Most recently, the company announced on Monday

07:31 in an SEC filing that it was going to put out more shares. Now, that's what I understand

07:37 common for companies that come to the public market like it did in this back. But yet,

07:41 it's not something that is making investors happy to all of a sudden find out that their

07:45 ownership of the company has been diluted.

07:48 Zach Everson, thank you so much.

07:50 My pleasure.

07:51 Thank you.

07:52 Thank you.

07:53 Thank you.

07:54 Thank you.

07:55 Thank you.

08:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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