Days after the assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump last month, Ben Wolfgramm, president of a family-owned Wisconsin glassware company, began advertising a new product on Facebook: a whiskey tumbler with a bullet protruding from it and the words “Bulletproof Trump” inscribed on it.
Facebook removed the ad within an hour for violating the company's policy against political content in ads, so Mr. Wolfgram paid Truth Social, a social network owned by one of Mr. Trump's companies, $7,500 to run about five of Mr. Trump's ads for a week. Truth Social ran the ads, no questions asked.
Trump's site has been “much more lenient,” said Wolfgram of Appleton-based Benshott Inc. His ads have been viewed more than 1 million times.
Five months after going public, Truth Social's owner, Trump Media & Technology Group, has said little about how it plans to build its business. But a New York Times investigation found that the company, a major source of Trump's wealth, is increasingly dependent on revenue from an obscure corner of the advertising market, a niche known as the “patriotic economy,” that caters to rabid Trump supporters and Christian conservatives.
In effect, Trump Media's operations are funded by right-wing operators with relatively small advertising budgets, including some who have been booted off other social media platforms and others looking to ride the Trump wave. Trump Media has created a de facto closed-loop ecosystem of Trump-centric sites that rely on a lot of advertising by, and for, Trump supporters. This contrasts with major social networks like Facebook and X, which carry ads from Fortune 500 companies like Disney and Walmart, raising questions about how much Trump Media can grow.
Nearly half of Truth Social's most frequently viewed ads this year Advertisers include Republican Dogs, which sells Trump 2024 flags, and Proud Patriot, which sells Trump T-shirts and merchandise, according to data from researcher Konrad Iturbe, who collated data on 851 ads on Truth Social this year. Other notable Truth Social advertisers include U.S. LawShield, which helps gun owners find lawyers, and political action groups that support Trump's campaign.
In 2023, roughly a third of Truth Social's most active advertisers were promoting conservative political apparel or other products, according to Iturbe's data, and that number is up from there.
The results of this strategy have been anything but stellar: In the first three months of this year, Trump Media lost $327.6 million, generating just $770,000 in revenue, all of which came from advertising. (The company merged with a publicly traded shell company in March, raising $350 million in cash.)
Trump Media's performance impacts Trump's finances. Trump owns 60% of the company, but cannot sell his stake until the end of September due to rules designed to prevent large investors from crashing the stock price. After Trump Media went public, the company's stock price soared, adding billions of dollars to Trump's net worth. But the stock remains volatile, down 60% from its peak in the first week of trading.
Experts say Trump Media's reliance on advertising from right-wing merchandisers could be hindering the company's expansion.TruthSocial had about 448,700 monthly active users in the U.S. in June, a tiny fraction of X's 74.3 million users, according to data-tracking site SimilarWeb.
Russell Weiner, associate dean of marketing at New York University's Stern School of Business, said Truth Social has such close ties to Trump that “big companies will never go near it.” “I don't think it'll ever be profitable.”
Trump Media on Monday began rolling out “Truth+,” a streaming service focused on news and Christian programming that will include limited video from conservative media outlets such as Newsmax, right-wing podcaster and former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon and Patriot TV Network.
Trump Media spokeswoman Shannon Devine said in a statement that the company is “positioned to launch streaming and other major platform enhancements and pursue profitable acquisition opportunities as they arise.” She declined to answer other questions about the company's business strategy but said the Times had “falsely attacked our company and our advertisers.”
During a June visit to Trump Media's headquarters in an office park in Sarasota, Fla., a Times reporter saw a few people working in a large, mostly empty room. Trump Media's website lists engineering jobs as well as general job applications.
Advertisements on Truth Social began running in late 2022, about a year after the platform launched. Since then, the site's reliance on right-wing vendors has increased, especially as President Trump's election campaign has gained momentum.
After the assassination attempt on Trump, small merchants began buying advertising space on Truth Social on T-shirts, mugs and trading cards featuring the now-ubiquitous image of the former president with his fist raised in defiance.
One of Truth Social's biggest advertisers is Based Apparel, a Leesburg, Virginia-based company that describes itself as a marketplace for “purpose-driven apparel entrepreneurs” and sells items like “I Stand With 45” hoodies (a reference to Trump being the 45th president of the United States), “We the People” T-shirts and Truth Social hats, according to Iturbe's data.
Based Apparel began advertising on Truth Social in September. “The site is a cornerstone of our advertising strategy, allowing us to directly engage with our core customer base,” said Andrew Ollis, vice president of Based Apparel.
Oris is also on the board of directors of a nonprofit run by conservative public figure Kash Patel, who sits on the board of directors for Trump Media and occasionally reposts promotions for Based Apparel to his 1.26 million followers on Truth Social. The company's Facebook page lists Patel and Oris as founders of the Based Apparel brand.
Not all of Truth Social's advertisers have a political theme. The site has run ads from extreme marketers hawking diet pills, alternative medicine and gold bars. One of its biggest advertisers is Nevada-based Dream Singles, which describes itself as a “premium international dating site,” according to Iturbe's data. Dream Singles declined to comment.
Michelle Cataldo, who sells handmade wreaths and Christian clothing on her own website, said she recently turned to Truth Social to sell her products and set up an account under her company, Cataldo Creations.
Cataldo said she considered buying ads on Truth Social after the online marketplace Etsy determined that a T-shirt she was selling for $35 violated its policies. Etsy objected because the T-shirt included a Bible verse that suggested there are only two genders, according to emails reviewed by The Times.
“It makes sense for me to be here,” Cataldo said of Truth Social, “because from a social media standpoint, my audience is better here.”
Susan C. Beachy contributed to the research.
