Truth Social is pretty hard to escape these days. As Donald Trump’s hush money trial gets underway, he has been using “Truth” as a megaphone to voice his displeasure with everything from the temperature of the courtroom to the proceedings themselves (which, unsurprisingly, has gotten him in some hot water with the presiding judge). At the same time, shares of Truth’s parent company, Trump Media, have been on a roller-coaster ride, surging and plunging at a dizzying rate. (Shares are down 25% in the past month, but closed up 8% on Friday, for instance.)
All of that media attention should result in a boost in the number of users. But a new study by Similarweb, which measures web traffic, finds that engagement with Truth has largely flatlined.
“Some might have expected that trajectory to change this week with the start of the trial in which prosecutors allege former President Trump violated campaign laws by arranging for hush money payments to a porn star,” the report reads. “So far, engagement with Trump’s digital media has remained flat or even down slightly.”
The number of daily active users on the app for the first two days of the trial were roughly 106,000 and 114,000. That’s actually lower than the average of 116,000 over the prior days in April, Similarweb estimates.
Truth did not respond to Fast Company’s request for comment about the report.
The most recent peak for Truth came March 8, the day Trump posted a $91.6 million bond to cover the defamation verdict in favor of writer E. Jean Carroll. On that day, the daily active user count popped to 148,000, Similarweb says. Overall traffic to the site has followed the same pattern. There have been smaller surges, including around the time of the IPO, but overall the report finds Truth Social had 21% fewer monthly active users in March than it did during the same period a year prior.
Truth, in its regulatory filings, has said it won’t report user numbers because it is “focused on developing Truth Social by enhancing features and user interface rather than relying on traditional performance metrics like average revenue per user, ad impressions and pricing, or active user accounts, including monthly and daily active users.”
It raises the question: Is Trump, on Truth, simply preaching to the choir?
If his posts were contained just to the Truth ecosystem, perhaps. But Trump’s statements on the platform are often flashed on television screens during newscasts, embedded in online articles, and shared on other social media platforms. Regardless of where he posts it, he is still somewhat successfully getting his message out.
But it’s questionable whether his social media strength is sufficient to drive new users to Truth—something that could potentially attract more advertisers. That would be welcome to shareholders, since Truth boasted sales of just $3.3 million in the first nine months of last year. It would also give some peace of mind to institutional trading houses, which have so far been rather bearish on the stock.
“For investors questioning whether Trump Media makes sense as an investment, rather than a political endorsement, it does look like Trump’s standing as a social media market-maker has faded,” Similarweb writes.