There was lots of hype and anticipation, but former President Donald Trump’s Twitter clone doesn’t appear to be taking off just yet. Truth Social was released to much hype shortly before Presidents Day, but many people were put on waitlists amid huge demand. Now, as more people are getting in, they’re finding a veritable ghost town, as no one really appears to be using the social network, not even the former president. Trump is followed by only 140,000 people, a fraction of the almost 90 million who followed him on Twitter before he was kicked out of there after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. According to reports, Trump only has one message, or “Truth,” up on the network: “Get Ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!” He wrote that before the app’s launch and it has 7,750 “ReTruths,” the app’s version of retweets.
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Some big-name Republican lawmakers, including the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, have accounts on the app, but they don’t seem to be posting anything different from what they post on other social media platforms. “Put simply, there isn’t much happening on the site,” writes Politico’s Ruby Cramer, who was able to join the site recently after being placed on a waitlist.
It seems Trump knows his long-awaited app is a bomb and he’s none too happy about it. The Daily Beast talks to two sources who say the former president has been complaining about the app’s lack of success and the negative media coverage it has received. In public, though, Trump is urging followers to be patient, assuring that those who use it are “loving the product.” But the numbers suggest otherwise. Although there was a surge of interest when it first launched, now there aren’t a lot of people logging on, and those who do don’t seem to stay very long. “From the inside,” writes Cramer, “Truth Social feels empty.”
