Led By Nunes, Trump's Social Media Media Startup Falters
Donald Trump, expecting to make lots of money off his upstart social media venture Truth Social, has turned down offers to work with other platforms such as Gettr and Parler already on the rise in a flood of right-wing media sites.
Trump is simply too greedy to cut in anyone else on what he's sure will be a rich payoff from the conspiracy-laden haven he’s itching to launch. There's just one problem: It's a Trump venture and, therefore, already flailing, per The Washington Post.
Sure, Trump had a knack for sending off bogus tweets that lit his MAGA cultists on fire. That was his daily, if not hourly, ritual for four full years at the White House. That was governance to Trump.
But actually starting up a company that supposedly does something other than bloviate is proving to be a touch more difficult of a task for ol' Trump. For months, that failure has reduced twitchy-finger Trump to releasing nothing but a string of disgruntled statements that limp along in the mediascape until they're soon forgotten.
Twitter has permanently suspended Trump following lies he spouted in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Facebook and Instagram ultimately imposed a two-year suspension on Trump, which pushes the prospect of his reentrance on the platforms past the midterm election. While blowing up Twitter with lies and outrage was Trump's favorite pastime, Facebook actually served as a better small-dollar fundraising tool for Trump.
In the meantime, Trump's “Truth” platform has fallen victim to a series of delays ranging from the dozens of hires necessary to staff it up to scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission over a planned merger between Trump Media and a publicly traded company, Digital World Acquisition. Such mergers, made through a Special Purpose Acquisition Company or SPAC, typically take five to six months from the time the merger is announced to the time the deal closes, according to Michael Ohlrogge, an assistant law professor at New York University.
Enter new Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes, the newly resigned California congressman and former dairy farmer who appears to have no credentials equal to the task of standing up a social media startup.
Trump also didn't exactly hit it out of the park with his debut of TruthSocial.com last fall. The Post writes:
The early version of the site was quickly taken down after pranksters posted a photo of a defecating pig under the username “donaldjtrump.” Days later, the creators of the open-source social media software that the site used, Mastodon, sent Trump Media a letter saying Truth Social had violated the terms under which the software could be used.
Following that debacle, a planned beta launch in November never actually took place. Apple's App Store pegs the expected launch date for the Truth Social app at February 21.
Meanwhile, Nunes is reportedly burning up the phone lines with venture capitalists to get the lowdown on how to build a company.
Nonetheless, a Trump spokesperson said he remains undeterred.
“The demand for President Trump, his leadership, and his ‘America First’ solutions continue to grow despite Big Tech’s attack on his freedom of speech,” spokesman Taylor Budowich said.
If he could just find an outlet, Trump's special brand of paranoia would be super duper popular. Too bad he’s tripping over his greed.
