Trump’s Truth Social platform has lost $73m since launch, filing shows
Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social has lost $73m since its launch in early 2022, a securities filing revealed on Monday, and is struggling to find additional funds.
The ex-president had announced the launch of his social media app in October 2021, saying it would “stand up to big tech” companies such as Twitter and Facebook that previously barred him.
But a filing by Digital World Acquisition Corp, the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that plans to merge with Truth Social’s owner, Trump Media & Technology Group’s (TMTG), showed the social media company has been losing money heavily.
In 2022, Truth Social posted a loss of $50m, with net sales of just $1.4m. It lost $23m in the first half of this year, with net sales of $2.3m.
Digital World Acquisition also revealed that the Securities and Exchange
Commission, the US’s top financial watchdog, was looking at the deal in a move that “could cause us to be unable to consummate the business combination”.
If the merger collapses, the filing states, Truth Social will struggle to find new funds. TMTG’s independent registered public accounting firm has indicated that the financial condition raises substantial doubt as to its ability to continue as a going concern, according to the filing.
“TMTG believes that it may be difficult to raise additional funds through traditional financing sources in the absence of material progress toward completing its merger with Digital World.”
The company also eliminated several positions in March, the filing said, adding that the action followed a review of all departments, most significantly impacting TMTG’s streaming video on demand and infrastructure teams.
Millions of British eyes will be on Blackpool this Saturday night, as the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing show makes its feverishly anticipated annual visit to the Grade I-listed Tower Ballroom. But the architectural legacy of Blackpool’s golden age as a seaside resort has a hazardous side as well as a sparkling one – as our Living Hell series on the private rental sector has revealed this week. Astonishingly, according to the town’s council, all 18,000 of its privately rented homes – many of them former guesthouses – have a damp and mould problem. Mounting evidence points to such conditions as a cause of worsening public health.
Last year the coroner at the inquest into the death of Awaab Ishak, who died as a result of exposure to black mould in Rochdale, said the verdict should be a “defining moment”. But while the two-year-old was an extreme case, experts believe the problems caused by substandard accommodation go much wider, and contribute to thousands of respiratory infections annually. While the situation in Blackpool is acute for both geographical and historical reasons (including wet weather and the type of housing), atrocious living conditions can be found across the country.
Some of the accommodation seen by Guardian reporters is shocking. But even worse than the damp walls, mouldy bathrooms and holes in floors are the hurdles faced by tenants in getting anything done about them. Unlike in the social housing sector, where landlords are obliged to ensure that properties meet a decent homes standard, it is up to tenants in private rentals to demand that minimum standards are reached (the only exception is energy safety, for which landlords are responsible). Under the terms of the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act of 2018, rent
ican favela; a three-team, die-onceand-you’re-out fracas around a dusty oil well: these are endlessly enjoyable arenas, and the game perfectly matches you with players on either side of your skill level to encourage you to improve, while ensuing you don’t become crestfallen.
For players who prefer a more cooperative approach, MWIII’s standout mode is Zombies, a major and brilliant overhaul of last year’s tentative DMZ, in which a team of three drop into a city, scavenge for materials, upgrade their weapons, fight zombies and, ideally, exfiltrate the map with all the loot before the timer runs down. The deeper into the city the team ventures, the greater the challenge and rewards. A proficient group will move through the ruined city as a single unit, completing little missions, incrementally upgrading their offensive and defensive capabilities, and occasionally running into other trios of players who are trying to do the same. It’s tremendous fun, and fully realises DMZ’s potential by essentially relocating the concept to the post-apocalyptic world of The Last of Us.
While Warzone, Call of Duty’s immensely popular battle royale mode, is yet to be brought under the MWIII umbrella, players can currently work together in War Mode, which pitches two teams of six players against one another across a vast map. Defenders attempt to hold back advancing invaders, who must pass thresholds and meet objectives in order to move the frontline back into enemy terrain, escorting a tank through pocked streets before leaping into a missile bunker to upload codes and a prevent a launch. It’s a toysoldier representation of frontline warfare whose closest real-life equivalent is rugby or American Football, where success is primarily measured in yards, not kills.
Reviewing a Call of Duty game today is a bit like reviewing a military theme park: it’s impossible to give a holistic appraisal. You might find the rollercoasters thrilling, the ferris wheel tiresome, and the hotdogs tasty, but consider its murky ties to the US military-industrial complex deeply problematic. Certainly, however, the game has expanded in such diverse and deliberate directions that most players will find at least one diversion to suit their tastes and play styles, and for this the developers are to be commended. Wrangling an annual series into a persistent online framework is obviously an unwieldy challenge for artists, designers and programmers alike, as they seek to marry the past and future of video game delivery. Within those difficult, arguably misguided constraints, MWIII is, campaign aside, a minor triumph of engineering and design.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is out now; from £59.99