• hddsx@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    Putting aside any feeling you may have for or against Trump, WTF does TMTG do? From what I can tell, it runs Truth Social and is planning to launch a streaming service.

    I did some quick googling and Truth Social appears to be a mastodon instance with a non-default backend that is free to use with 600k active monthly users.

    Facebook alone (not including other META products) has 2.9 billion active monthly users.

    What’s so valuable about it? Sure, they are probably running ads. But why would someone advertise on Truth Social over Facebook? Is the conversion rate somehow better on truth social?

      • hddsx@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        From stock sales? Are they buying directly from the company? If not, I don’t think the company sees the money

        • socsa@piefed.social
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          2 months ago

          The idea was that the Saudis and Russians pump money into the stock to keep the price propped up until Donny can cash out, but that only works if you have enough cash to backfill the volume ratio as needed. It would work a lot better if they could have been quieter about it, but Trump basically makes billions as long as the price doesn’t actually go to zero since his shares are grants for using his “brand.”

          It’s not so much money laundering as a completely legal path for foreign agents to buy favors from a possible US President.

        • nomous@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Are they buying directly from the company?

          Exactly, you guarantee you’ll buy shares of my company and I guarantee I’ll make decisions that benefit you.

            • nomous@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              In this scenario the market maker and the briber are the same person.

              Market makers only need to be willing to buy like 100 shares, that’d be pretty trivial for people with resources.

    • athairmor@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It’s not valued based on any normal metric. It’s pure meme, speculation, cult and money laundering.

      I doubt many investors even look at conversion rates.

    • MagicShel@programming.dev
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      2 months ago

      But why would someone advertise on Truth Social over Facebook?

      Because I could sell star spangled shit on a shingle to that lot for a premium.

    • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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      2 months ago

      What’s so valuable about it?

      Nothing.

      It’s a very unusual situation.

      It’s basically a proxy for a bet on whether Trump will get a second term. That’s why it took a dump after the debate didn’t go well.

      Supporters want to say they have some TMTG shares, and are happy to pay absurd prices for shares without reference to the actual value.

      • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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        2 months ago

        And outside the cult, it’s a bet that Truth Social would become a vector for bribing the president of the United States. If people are going to bribe Trump by pumping his share price, you can get a cut.

        • hddsx@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          TMTG has a huge net operating loss. I think that the way the company is bribed is in investment funds.

          However, I don’t think they are bribing him by pumping his share price. IIRC (take this with a hugeeeee grain of salt) the share price is determined by the last transaction price. If you place a market order, it’s the sell prices that would fulfill your order amount. On the other hand, a limit order is fulfilling your order at a set price. It would take consistent investment over time to create enough transactions to keep the stock price high.

          Hence, I think TMTG is receiving large cash infusions and Trump is getting paid through bonuses or something similar. Cheaper and more direct

    • VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Oh come on just because we hate Trump doesn’t mean we should kid ourselves, there’s a lot of value to having access to 600k of the easiest to scam rubes on the planet.