Trump’s net worth has dropped by $900m since Harris entered the race

Truth Social has experienced declining audience numbers too

Josh Marcus
San Francisco
Friday 02 August 2024 00:48 BST
Comments
Trump defends JD Vance's sexist 'childless cat lady' comment

Your support helps us to tell the story

As your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.

Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn't have the resources to challenge those in power.

Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November election

Head shot of Andrew Feinberg

Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Donald Trump’s net worth has dropped by an estimated $900m since since Kamala Harris entered the presidential race last month, according to an analysis from CNN.

The precipitious decline is due to the changing value of Trump’s stake in Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the parent company of his Twitter clone Truth Social.

Trump has over 114m shares in TMTG, whose value has declined 23 percent since July 21, from $4bn to about $3.1bn, according to CNN.

Stock in Truth Social has often acted as a stand-in for Donald Trump’s overall political fortunes
Stock in Truth Social has often acted as a stand-in for Donald Trump’s overall political fortunes (Getty Images)

TMTG stock has often served as a stand-in for Trump’s political fortunes, declining during his hush money trial, then spiking when he bested Joe Biden at the debates and bumping up again when he survived an assassination attempt.

The latest plunge follows a season of bad news for TMTG.

The platform has suffered some of its worst-ever audience numbers as of late, according to a media analysis.

In June, the site had just over 2.11m unique visitors down 38 percent compared to the same period last year.

It is the second lowest site traffic has dipped since June 2022, when Truth Social attracted 1.8 million visitors, according to Howard Polskin, of media monitoring firm TheRighting, who based his analysis on Comscore data. And it’s a world away from the site’s more than 3.2 million visitors upon launch in February of 2022.

“The diminishing audience levels for Truth Social suggest a rejection of the harsh rhetoric expressed by the ex-president and his political allies that is one of the hallmarks of the two-year-old platform,” Polskin told The Guardian.

“If this softness persists, it might portend trouble for Mr Trump at the ballot box in November,” he added.

That hasn’t stopped the company from continuing to try and grow Truth Social.

Earlier this month, it announced its first major purchase, of technology that would help stream TV on Truth Social.

One of the companies involved in the deal is JedTech LLC, a Louisiana-based firm controlled by James E Davison, a major Republican donor with business interests impacted by the federal government, according to ProPublica.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in