Exclusive: Truth Social to license its data to Wall Street

• McGurn, a former executive at Shazam, Hulu, Vevo and T-Mobile, has spent much of his career leading revenue and growth strategies for mostly media and tech firms.

Zoom in: The new Truth API provides real-time access to posts from the platform's top 10 trending accounts. In the future, the API can be expanded to more accounts for customers willing to pay more, McGurn says.

• Those accounts include decision makers who impact policy and geopolitical outcomes, such as President Trump (@realDonaldTrump), the White House (@WhiteHouse), FBI Director Kash Patel (@Kash), White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino (@DanScavino) and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (@seckennedy).
• Trump Media has already signed several customers ahead of the Aug. 1 launch, including financial news organizations and high-frequency trading firms, McGurn tells Axios. He did not identify specific customers.

Between the lines: McGurn says firms have been scraping Truth Social data for months, often in violation of its terms of service, and repackaging it for institutional clients.

• "We're going to create a lot of friction for those folks that aren't coming to us directly," he says, arguing the licensed API will be significantly faster than scraping.

Catch up quick: TMTG went public in 2024 through its merger with a blank-check company.

• The firm originally focused on monetizing the Truth Social platform with ads. It has since expanded into subscriptions and streaming through its Truth+ platform, as well as financial services and bitcoin.
• It's now awaiting the close of its roughly $6 billion merger with fusion-energy company TAE Technologies as it looks to evolve into a broader holding company.
• McGurn says the company's portfolio of businesses are built around themes including free speech, decentralized finance and energy.

Reality check: TMTG's business is tiny compared with most media companies, let alone Big Tech firms or investment conglomerates.

• Last year, the company made $3.68 million in revenue from advertising and subscriptions against its media business.
• It had a net loss of $712 million, much of which came from accounting charges tied to its cryptocurrency investments.

Zoom out: Beyond Truth API, McGurn sees licensing as a key opportunity to grow TMTG's business.

• The company is also discussing licensing Truth Social data to AI companies for large language model training, he says.
• Other social discourse companies, like X and Reddit, also license their platform data to enterprise clients.

The big picture: McGurn is bullish on licensing as a solid recurring revenue business, given that the markets already move on Truth Social posts.

• Last year, stocks soared in response to a Truth Social post from the president saying "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!"
• Hours later, he announced on Truth Social a 90-day pause on most reciprocal tariffs, while raising tariffs on China.

Disclosure: In 2023, TMTG sued 20 media organizations, including Axios, for defamation. Litigation is ongoing.