President Donald Trump’s social media company reported a loss of $238m (£176m) between April and June as it branched into ventures unrelated to media, including cryptocurrencies.
The quarterly loss is more than 10 times the amount reported during the same period a year earlier, according to the Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns the President’s Truth Social platform.
The firm says it will refocus on its social media mission, which includes a controversial service that offers faster access to market-moving postsfrom the platform’s most influential users.
The group’s interim chief executive officer Kevin McGurn said on Monday that more than 10 customers have signed up for the service.
The BBC has contacted Trump Media and Technology Group for further comment.
The company posted $1.7m in revenue, which it said is up 89% from the same period a year before, but suffered overall loss due to the drop in cryptocurrencies.
It added that it closed the second quarter with total assets of $2bn and financial assets of about $1.9bn, which includes cash, short-term investments and digital currencies.
The group has yet to turn a profit, even as it expands into areas including cryptocurrency holdings and clean-energy investments.
Trump Media is more of a crypto holdings firm “wrapped around” a media company, and the bulk of its losses have come from that strategy, Markus Thielen, an analyst from 10x Research, told the BBC.
The company is diversifying beyond its crypto business into areas such as social media, though those ventures have yet to generate significant revenue, Thielen said.
In July, Trump Media announced a plan to give Wall Street traders faster access to posts on Truth Social, where Trump frequently makes announcements. It has been viewed as a way to give subscribers an edge in trading stocks and other heavily traded assets.
The move has prompted legal and ethical questions, including whether it is right that a company – of which the president’s family remains the majority shareholder – stands to potentially profit from his own public statements.
The new service is “expected to provide the company with a new revenue stream,” Trump Media said in its earnings statement on Monday.
McGurn said: “I’m encouraged by this momentum, and shareholders should expect more frequent communication from us on our progress each quarter as we enter this next chapter.”
By BBC News
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