Stock market reality hits Trump's Truth Social, a janky website

The MoJo Daily newsletter, Monday through Friday. [View in browser]( [Support our nonprofit journalism]( [Mother Jones Daily Newsletter](     April 2, 2024 The stock market, investing, IPOs. I confess to not knowing much about these words; beyond the occasional Google search, I rarely care to find out more. So when news hit that Donald Trump's social media platform debuted on the market last week to whopping numbers, instantly adding as much as $6.2 billion to the former president's wallet, I balked. How the hell does a janky website, that more or less exists as a podium for [ALL-CAPS nonsense](, hold that much value? (Remember, this is the platform Trump used to compare his legal jeopardy to the persecution of Jesus Christ.) Well, Russ Choma is here with an incredibly useful explainer that [pierces through the stock market hype with a dash of hard reality](, at least for the former president. [Here's the latest](: Truth Social, which trades under the ticker symbol DJT, posted its financials from last year. They are grim. The stock went spiraling down immediately. By the end of trading on Monday, the stock had closed at $48.66, and Trump had lost an estimated $2.4 billion of wealth since the stock’s high point last week. [But the more important takeaway? This](: With the company going public, it did get access to about $300 million in investor funds to help it survive. But it has already spent a chunk of that settling an SEC probe, and that cash could go quickly if it doesn’t add more users. Even for someone as stock-market-illiterate as me, this makes sense, and it offers a whole lot of key context to [Truth Social's poor financial foundation](. I guess that explains, at least partly, the new [$60 Bible venture](. It ain't easy out there for men scrambling to [secure hundreds of millions]( in bond money. —Inae Oh Advertisement [The Sicilian Inheritance]( [Top Story] [Top Story]( [With Famine “Imminent,” Israeli Military Kills Seven Aid Workers Delivering Food to Gazans]( "The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon," says chef José Andrés. BY JULIANNE MCSHANE FROM MOTHER JONES   Mother Jones and Grist team up for an Earth Week event! Join Mother Jones, Grist, and the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School on April 23 at 7:30 p.m. ET as leaders in the environmental justice space discuss equity, infrastructure, jobs, and the urban energy transition. Featuring the “father of environmental justice,” Dr. Robert Bullard (Texas Southern University, Bullard Center for Environmental & Climate Justice), Jade Begay (Indigenous rights advocate and climate researcher), and Leah Thomas (intersectional environmentalist), we’ll dig into the issues, opportunities, and solutions driving an equitable transformation for America. For tickets, click this [link](. [Trending] [Trump's Truth Social lost $58 million last year!]( BY RUSS CHOMA   [The Biden administration just rescued parts of the Endangered Species Act]( BY KILEY PRICE   [Florida Supreme Court approves a six-week abortion ban]( BY JULIANNE MCSHANE   [In Missouri, an all-white school board threatens to eliminate a Black history class]( BY FRANCES MADESON Advertisement [The Sicilian Inheritance]( [Special Feature] [Special Feature]( [An academic's grand unified theory on why things are getting worse]( After studying how societies crumble, Peter Turchin has a warning for America's elite. BY ALI BRELAND MOTHER JONES MEMBERSHIP UPDATE   An important update on our finances We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals—and we can’t sustain coming up short on [donations]( month after month. It is [impossibly hard]( in the news business right now, and the [crisis]( facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. Neither is Mother Jones. Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and [joined forces]( with the Center for Investigative Reporting, which creates the amazing podcast and public radio show [Reveal]( and other investigative projects. It’s going to be hard making it all work, and we simply can’t afford to fall behind our fundraising targets month after month. If you can part with even just a few bucks, [please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today](. And thank you so much to everyone who recently has. We’re grateful. [Donate]( Did you enjoy this newsletter? Share it on [Facebook]( and [Twitter](. [Mother Jones]( [Donate]( [Donate Monthly]( [Subscribe]( This message was sent to {EMAIL}. To change the messages you receive from us, you can [edit your email preferences]( or [unsubscribe from all mailings.]( For advertising opportunities see our online [media kit.]( Were you forwarded this email? [Sign up for Mother Jones' newsletters today.]( [www.MotherJones.com]( PO Box 8539, Big Sandy, TX 75755