The company set up to debut a new social media venture from former President Donald Trump slid for its seventh straight day Monday, cratering on news that two major executives would leave and that its competitor, Twitter, now counts Elon Musk as its largest shareholder.
Shares in Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWACU) – Get Digital World Acquisition Corp. Report dropped by more than 14% in Monday trading, after Reuters reported that Chief of Product Development Billy Boozer and Chief of Technology Josh Adams were leaving the company that makes the Truth Social app.
Trump Media & Technology Group had merged with the shell company in order to launch its first foray into social media, but it has run into repeated hurdles.
Last week, the company had to delay filing its annual 10-K report, saying it would not meet a deadline set by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company has lost almost a quarter of its value since March 22.
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Elon Musk Arrives on the Scene
Both setbacks are now being dwarfed by the news that tech guru Elon Musk has taken a 9% stake in Truth Social’s main rival, Twitter (TWTR) – Get Twitter, Inc. Report.
Many of Truth Social’s targeted users had been pitched on the idea that Trump’s new app would allow for more freedom of speech than Twitter currently does.
The world’s main real-time social media platform banned the former president last January, after an attempted coup on the nation’s capitol. It has also stepped up efforts to take users spreading misinformation offline, and put in place new guidelines for how it oversees the site.
But with Musk holding a major slice of the company, users may be looking forward to a relaxation of those rules, as well as a more aggressive version of Twitter within the tech sector itself.
Truth Social Users Have Had a Tough Time
Even without all these various hold ups, Truth Social users have had a tough time actually using the app.
Available for over a month now, the app has been plagued by glitches, including not being able to sign up users or sending error messages to users who wanted to use it.
Research firm Apptopia reports that downloads of the app have fallen 95% since its February debut, Bloomberg News reports.
