(Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Staff / Getty Images New via Getty Images)
Former President Donald Trump offered to sell his social media platform Truth Social to Elon Musk last summer, The Washington Post reports.
The conversation, which has been kept under wraps until now, didn't come to anything. At the time, Truth Social faced significant financial challenges.
Trump founded Truth Social in February 2022, about a year after he was kicked off Twitter (now X) and Meta's apps following the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol. Truth Social functions the same way as X, though users share "truths" and "retruths" instead of "tweets" and "retweets." By 2023, the platform had burned through cash and failed to attract sufficient ad revenue. It reported $31.6 million in losses between 2021 and mid-2023, according to Reuters.
After Musk's Twitter takeover, he restored Trump's account, though Trump has only posted on X once since then, when his mug shot came out. Trump has been more active on Facebook since Meta restored his accounts there last year, mostly with campaign-related posts, but his unedited thoughts usually end up on Truth Social.
Truth Social got the financial relief it needed last month, when the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the long-delayed merger of Truth Social with Digital World Acquisition, The Washington Post reports. The deal sets the stage for Truth Social to become a publicly traded company and unlocks a much-needed $300 million in investor cash.
Musk and Trump have continued to communicate, most recently meeting at Mar-a-Lago. Neither has publicly disclosed the nature of the conversation. After reports suggested Trump could be asking Musk, the world's second-richest man, for funds amid his most recent legal troubles, Musk posted on X that he is “not donating money to either candidate for US President.”