Truth Social: Is Media Protecting Trump From Embarrassment?

Why is it so difficult to find new stories each evening about how Trump’s Truth Social stock did during the day’s trading? Believe me I look and yesterday evening looked quite a bit. There were a handful of stories about the stock having dropped some more during morning trading but after that?  I’m not a financial geek nor familiar with the stock markets. Hell, I’ve never purchased a single share of stock in my life. However, even I can understand a simple number – the closing price of of a single share of a company’s stock on a given day. And a graph showing how it’s trended from day-to-day, week-to-week etc.  I’m trying to follow the price of “DJT” (the name Truth Social trades under on NASDAQ) and it’s a lot tougher than I thought it would be. It’s almost like mainstream media, and even many outlets that focus on Wall Street/Finance are if not hiding, then downplaying the steady decline of Truth Social!

It’s not a tall task to do three things. First, after trading closes check the NASDAQ electronic board for the price. Second, when talking about Truth Social state the current price. Third, compare that with the week before or even the prior two weeks and compare it to it’s peak price that they hyped.  It sure as hell looks to me like that exactly what they DON’T want to do. Or perhaps are allowed to do.

I’m regularly critical of modern journalism. I’m not the only one of course. However while there are exceptions, or some journalists that sometimes actually do their jobs overall it’s become a professional filled with half/lazy-assed reporting. Much of this of course flows from the executive offices (and boardrooms) of outlets from corporate media to local newspapers and TV/Radio stations. One “standard” that is the bedrock of modern “journalism” is that when it comes to politics/elections is to focus on “horse race” coverage. It’s cheaper for the outlets (true investigative reporting takes time and money) and journalists like not having to actually work. Donald Trump is a godsend to them. All kinds of material they can blather about, yet they DO have to put in SOME work – to normalize him to have their freaking “horse race” to talk about.

That brings me to the debut of Trump’s Truth Social becoming a publicly traded company a couple of weeks ago. It’s striking how many people don’t know (because the media hasn’t spent nearly enough time pointing it out) that the Trump Org has always been a family business. A large and complex one to be sure but it never had a Board of Directors to oversee how the company was run. You had Fred Trump, and then Donald Trump. Both could run things however they saw fit because there was no board to answer to. No stock price to worry about either. It was (and remains) a private company, and therefore Donald has never had to justify himself to a Board, or concern himself with stockholders.

Until now. Trump’s Truth Social baby became a publicly  traded company. It does, in theory at least have a Board of Directors but Don Jr. and the others aren’t about to question anything Trump does. They will do what he tells them and STFU rather than dare question any of his decisions. However, there are stockholders now and SEC regulations and other stuff that’s new territory for Donald. Being who he is I’m betting all he saw was the dollar signs of what an IPO (Initial Public Offering) of Truth Social stock would bring him. IPOs tend to generate a lot of hype and therefore buying, and the rewards are substantial for those with lots of shares to begin with.

If a company is sound despite fluctuations the majority shareholders will make out like bandits. If not, a lot of initial “paper wealth” can vanish like a fart in a whirlwind. That’s what more than a few experts predicted would happen with Truth Social, and the value is sliding like a turd sliding down the side of a toilet bowl (a fake gold one) before eventual flushing.  When DJT first began trading it spike in price at well over $79 a share and boy oh boy did the media talk about it.  Sure, there were caveats such as the standard six month lockdown period that would prevent Trump from selling (cashing in) or even using the stock as collateral.  There were even warnings that there were “issues” but overall the talk was about Trump’s windfall. He was actually worth billions!

Then pesky details came out. How little (four million) the company brought in last year, and how much (fifty-nine million) it lost. And how few users it had (what, two or three million?) vs. Facebook/Meta, Twitter/X and other platforms. The price quickly started dropping, And dropping. Five days in a row now. I even wrote an article here on Politizoom back on Saturday that Truth Social stock “value” was almost exactly half of what it had peaked at in those early days.  Things have continued to get worse this week. And I don’t just mean the price of a share of Truth Social, but hard information on exactly what the price of a share is!

Maybe it’s just me but outlets seem reluctant to report such a simple thing. Oh, they will talk in general terms almost daily, but in evening or first thing in the morning stories finding that one bit of simple information any person can easily understand, the individual share price it seems the past couple of days they don’t want to tell us. Are they trying not to embarrass Trump for fear  he’ll send the MAGAs after them? Are they trying to maintain the illusion Trump is a successful businessman so he can compete against Biden on economic stuff? Both?

All I know is that typing in price of Truth Social stock in various iterations was a waste of time last night. No matter what I tried, the most I could find was links to a couple of article that as I’ve noted mentioned how things stood mid day. But NONE that listed the closing price. Most of the articles suggested were days old!  WTF? Am I reading too much into this? Or am I right that a general agreement has been struck not to highlight the daily drops in the price of Truth Social.

I DID find this article from Barron’s this morning.  And lo & behold they plainly stated that by the close of business MONDAY Truth Social had dropped down again closing at $36.17 a share.  Still, the article if you look closely is twenty one hours old (at least at the time I opened it) but at least it clearly reported in short, plain and easy to understand terms where things stood. If only everyone who reported on this would be so clear. As for yesterday/Tuesday? Well, a general search only turned up what I showed you. However a more specific one with Barrons revealed as part of a larger article about two co-founders suing that as of the close of business for April 9 the stock was up a bit, closing at $37.47.

Still, that price is only 47% of that peak price that got so much attention in the early days of trading! Institutional investors will be staying away except for those looking to make some money by shorting the stock. That I’m learning will be difficult because the number of shares not controlled by Trump doesn’t allow for the kind of volume needed. However he has the MAGA faithful who will I predict at times help the stock rally a bit. Like Joe and Jane Schmo making their once in a lifetime trip to Vegas or Atlantic City they will lose all their money but my point is that Truth Social will last a while before the final flush.

I DO however think that if media outlets/pundits want to talk/write about Truth Social they should make mention of the price (and they have staff that can look at the big electronic board at the end of trading to see the price) that day (or if in the morning the day before) and how it’s trending. Unless as I suspect might be the case they are either afraid of Trump, or the bosses want to maintain the illusion Trump is way richer than he actually is.