Former President Donald Trump discussed selling his social media site Truth Social to Elon Musk last summer, the Washington Post reported Tuesday, at the same time the company that planned to take the social network public faced an SEC investigation and regulatory pressure.
The proposal ultimately didn’t lead to a deal, the Post reported, citing unnamed sources.
The talks came before the Securities and Exchange Commission approved a proposed merger in February between Trump Media & Technology Group, the mostly Trump-owned company that owns Truth Social, and blank check firm Digital World Acquisition Corp in a deal that would take the company public.
Trump was reportedly trying to sell the social network at the time, and SEC filings from 2023 revealed that Trump Media & Technology Group had lost over $31 million since it began operating Truth Social in 2021—only making a profit in 2022.
Musk previously criticized Truth Social, saying it has a “terrible name” and only “exists because Twitter censored free speech.”
Although Musk reinstated Trump’s Twitter account in November 2022 shortly after purchasing Twitter for $44 billion, the former president has only posted one time since—reportedly to retain value for Truth Social.
Musk has met with the former president before, including once last week in a meeting reported by The New York Times, but the billionaire also stated that he was “not donating money to either candidate for US President” in a post on X shortly after news of the meeting broke.
Musk has not returned a request for comment from Forbes, and only told the Washington Post that he has “never been to Mar-a-Lago,” and Trump’s campaign and media company have also not commented on the report.
The merger between TMTG and Digital World—known as a special-purpose acquisition company—was first announced in 2021, but was delayed as they sought regulatory approval from the SEC. In July 2023, Digital World agreed to pay an $18 million penalty to settle an SEC investigation for violating stock trading rules, with the agency alleging Digital World hadn’t told investors it had begun planning a merger with TMTG before going public. Although the merger was supposed to happen before September 2023, the company’s shareholders eventually extended the deadline and gave the company more time to facilitate the deal.
Elon Musk, who considers himself a political moderate, previously served on Donald Trump’s business advisory council. Although Musk said he retained the position to promote causes like sustainable energy and oppose Trump’s immigration policy, the billionaire publicly resigned from his position in 2017 after Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord. One of Musk’s biggest rifts with the former president is the issue of electric vehicles. Much of Musk’s wealth comes from his ownership of Tesla stock, but EVs have emerged as one of Trump’s biggest punching bags in the 2024 campaign, calling car companies that produce them “either stupid or they’re gutless.” However, Musk has recently begun promoting more conservative causes, primarily concerning immigration and conspiracy theories about elections.
We estimate Musk’s net worth is about $196.5 billion, making him the second-wealthiest person in the world. Trump is worth an estimated $2.6 billion.
