TechFlow reported on November 14 that according to a report by Fortune, Trump's social platform Truth Social and Musk's X platform (formerly Twitter) may merge. Data shows that Truth Social's revenue in the third quarter of this year was only $2.6 million, with 698,000 monthly active users on mobile terminals and 11.3 million monthly website visits; in contrast, X platform is expected to have annual advertising revenue of $2 billion, 70.4 million monthly active users, and 1 billion monthly website visits.
Erik Nisbet, director of the Center for Communication and Public Policy at Northwestern University, said that since Musk took over, the content style of Platform X has gradually moved closer to Truth Social. Both platforms use "free speech" as a selling point and are mainly aimed at conservative audiences. Data shows that 57% of Truth Social users use it as a daily news source, while Platform X is 59%.
In terms of content review, X platform still maintains relatively strict standards, banning about 5.3 million illegal accounts in the first half of this year. This is mainly because the platform needs to maintain relationships with large corporate advertisers. Truth Social has almost no advertising business, so it is relatively loose in content review.
Industry insiders believe that a potential merger makes more business sense for Trump and could serve as an exit strategy for him to cash out, with his holdings currently valued at about $3.3 billion.