Trump's Truth Social Suffers Stunning Double-Digit Traffic Decline

While ordinary users are drifting away from Truth Social, Wall Street traders are paying $60,000 (£44,000) to $100,000 (£74,000) a month for faster, machine-readable access to Donald Trump's posts, turning access to his potentially market-moving communications into a premium financial product.

Truth Social is facing a striking audience slump, with monthly visitors falling about 36% year on year in July, according to Similarweb data. Yet at the same time, Trump Media & Technology Group is betting that the value of Donald Trump's posts has little to do with how many ordinary people are reading them. That contradiction sits at the heart of the company's latest strategy.

Truth Social Traffic Takes a Hit

The Truth Social traffic decline comes at an awkward moment for Trump Media, which has been exploring everything from cryptocurrency to online betting while trying to build a business around the platform favoured by the US president.

The company's latest financial results add another layer of pressure. Trump Media reported a staggering $238.1 million (£176.2 million) second-quarter net loss, despite generating only $1.7 million (£1.3 million) in revenue. Revenue was up about 89% from a year earlier, but the size of the loss dwarfed the income coming through the door.

The headline loss was heavily affected by unrealised losses on cryptocurrency and other financial assets, so it does not mean the company simply spent $238.1 million (£176.2 million) in cash. Trump Media also reported an operating loss of about $164 million (£121.4 million), meaning the quarterly result was not solely the result of movements in asset values.

Wall Street Pays for Trump's Posts

Here is the remarkable part. While the platform's mass audience is shrinking, Trump Media is selling institutional customers licensed, low-latency access to posts from Trump and other prominent Truth Social accounts through a service called Truth API.

The price is eye-catching: $60,000 (£44,000) to $100,000 (£74,000) per customer each month. Interim chief executive Kevin McGurn said the company had already signed more than 10 customers, most of them high-frequency trading firms.

For traders whose systems operate in milliseconds, getting market-moving information even slightly faster can have real financial value. For the average Truth Social user, a few milliseconds or seconds may mean nothing. For an algorithm buying or selling assets at lightning speed, even a small difference in receiving and processing information can matter.

Why Trump's Posts Matter

The business model depends on a simple but powerful fact: Trump's Truth Social posts have the potential to move financial markets. As president, Trump can use the platform to discuss tariffs, trade policy, foreign affairs and other decisions capable of affecting stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities. Trump Media itself says Truth API targets organisations for which delays in receiving information carry a cost.

That makes Truth API more than an ordinary social media data service. Trump Media is effectively betting that rapid access to influential posts, including those from the president, is valuable enough for financial firms to pay handsomely for a licensed real-time feed. And that is precisely where the controversy begins.

Conflict of Interest Questions

Critics argue that allowing wealthy trading firms to receive a faster, low-latency feed of Trump's posts raises questions about fairness and potential conflicts of interest.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff have called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate the arrangement, asking regulators to determine whether it complies with federal securities laws. Rep. Ritchie Torres has also asked the SEC to investigate whether the service could violate federal securities laws.

Trump Media has rejected the suggestion that its service is improper. McGurn has argued that licensed, real-time data sold through commercial APIs is already common across the technology, media and financial-information industries.

Crucially, Truth API does not give subscribers access to unpublished Trump posts. The company describes it as providing low-latency, machine-readable access to posts that are publicly available on Truth Social. The unresolved question is whether a presidential social-media account should be treated like any other commercial data source when its posts can potentially move markets.

Trump Media Faces Bigger Financial Risks

The Truth Social traffic decline is only part of the problem. Trump Media ended the quarter with more than $400 million (£296 million) in cash and short-term investments, alongside roughly $1.2 billion (£888 million) in bitcoin and bitcoin-related assets. That gives the company a substantial financial cushion, but it also leaves its results exposed to volatile asset prices.

It also has around $1 billion (£740 million) in convertible debt, with lenders holding an option that could put pressure on the company in November if they seek early repayment. That makes the company's push for new revenue streams particularly important.

A Shrinking Audience, a Pricier Trump

Trump Media says it is refocusing on social media after spending the past year pursuing ventures including crypto and online betting. It still plans to pursue its proposed merger with nuclear fusion company TAE Technologies.

But the central challenge remains hard to miss. Truth Social is losing ordinary visitors at a time when Trump Media is trying to make the platform more valuable.

Its answer is not simply to attract more users. It is to monetise rapid, licensed access to content from its most influential accounts, including Trump's. That creates an extraordinary paradox: the audience may be shrinking, but faster access to the president's public posts has become a product for which some Wall Street firms are willing to pay as much as $100,000 (£74,000) a month.