After attempting to branch into a half-dozen new lines of business to bolster its sagging stock price, the media company behind Truth Social is returning to its roots — with a controversial twist.

During a conference call with investors on Monday, Trump Media & Technology announced it is unwinding much of its recent expansion and doubling down on its original media business by selling a form of accelerated White House access. The move has drawn sharp ethical criticism from Democrats and government watchdogs.

President Donald Trump originally launched Truth Social after being removed from Twitter and Facebook. However, with both platforms having reinstated him more than three years ago, the company has had to reinvent itself. Rather than functioning as a "free speech" forum, it has increasingly become a "hear it here first" destination — functioning almost as a secondary White House press office where users receive scoops directly from the president on topics ranging from the Iran war to tariffs to the future of the U.S. central bank.

As shares of the parent company continued to decline, Trump Media attempted to diversify into unrelated sectors including online betting, finance, investment funds, bitcoin acquisition and storage, and nuclear energy.

Now the company is circling back to its original mission — but with a commercial edge. It has launched a new premium service that provides high-speed access to President Trump's posts for a fee.

Speaking on the investor call, newly appointed CEO Kevin McGurn revealed that the company has already enrolled several high-speed trading firms, each paying between $60,000 and $100,000 per month.

"We're in the early innings," McGurn said, noting that the addressable market extends beyond traders to include data center companies, news organizations, and developers of large language models. He confirmed he is in active discussions with all of these potential client categories.

McGurn pushed back against suggestions that the new venture represents an ethical quagmire, as good-government groups have argued, pointing out that other social media platforms offer comparable data services. Major platforms including X and Meta have indeed built revenue streams around paid developer access to their real-time data feeds. The White House, for its part, has denied that any conflicts exist between Trump's presidential duties and his business interests, including situations where private interests may intersect with public policy.

For Wall Street traders who can profit significantly from receiving White House news faster than the broader market, the service has proven attractive. Presidential statements on trade policy, military actions, and monetary policy have historically triggered immediate market reactions, and firms already invest heavily in low-latency infrastructure to gain fractions-of-a-second advantages on government data releases. Ten firms signed up in the first week alone — a figure that may appear small but represents a substantial revenue increase for the company. Collectively, these monthly customers are paying between $7 million and $12 million annually, which is two to three times the total revenue the company generated across all of its businesses in the previous year.

The infusion of capital is badly needed. Trump Media has lost more than $1 billion since the beginning of last year. Its earnings report, released Monday for the quarter ended June 30, offered little indication of improvement: the company posted an additional loss of $238 million, though a significant portion stemmed from paper losses tied to the declining value of its bitcoin holdings.

The company faces mounting pressure from multiple deadlines. Trump Media relies in part on $1 billion raised from lenders through a special agreement that permits early repayment. These lenders can demand that the company repurchase their convertible notes on November 30 — a full 18 months before the loans mature.

That cashout date falls just after the November midterms, a timing that could have implications for the company if Democrats regain control of Congress. Several sitting members, including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, have stated they intend to launch formal investigations into Trump's businesses, including Trump Media, should their party take the majority.

A more distant but potentially more consequential deadline looms with the eventual end of Trump's presidency. The president is the platform's primary draw, but it remains uncertain how many users will continue to read his posts once he leaves office — let alone whether traders would be willing to pay as much as $1.2 million annually for early access to his updates if he can no longer use the platform to announce that the Strait of Hormuz is open or that he is imposing tariffs on dozens of countries.

The premium high-speed offering, branded as Truth API, also includes posts from other prominent accounts on the platform, though none approach the president's reach. Trump commands 13 million followers. The second-most-followed account, belonging to his son Donald Trump Jr., has 7.5 million.

Other heavily followed accounts include current administration officials whose popularity may also wane once out of office, such as FBI Director Kash Patel and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

One uncertainty is JD Vance, who will exit his role as vice president in 2028. Should he run for president and win, he may continue to be an active presence on the platform, where he currently has five million followers.

The one diversification initiative McGurn has opted to retain is nuclear fusion — a technology that is not yet commercially viable but has received significant support from the current administration. In June, the U.S. Department of Energy released a strategic "road map" committing government funding to accelerate nuclear fusion development as a national priority and calling for public-private partnerships.

Despite such backing, investors remain skeptical about Trump Media's prospects. After closing at approximately $62 per share following its public debut in 2024, the stock has tumbled into single digits, erasing billions in market value. On Monday, shares fell another 8% to close at $9.39.

Source: Fortune