Special Poll
In a bold move, Truth Social, the social media platform backed by former President Donald Trump, has taken legal action against 20 media outlets, including Newsweek, for allegedly defaming the company through false reports of its financial losses.
The Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the organization behind Truth Social, filed a lawsuit in the twelfth circuit court in Sarasota County, Florida, on Monday. The complaint contends that reports claiming the company had incurred a staggering $73 million loss since its inception are nothing short of “an utter fabrication.”
TMTG’s lawyers maintain that these erroneous reports, published within a tight 24-hour window, constitute a “coordinated media campaign” aimed at tarnishing Truth Social’s reputation and hindering its business prospects. They further assert that all the outlets cited the same public Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, a document that makes no mention of any such financial losses.
The company alleges that these false reports have caused significant damage, stating, “This was a coordinated effort to damage TMTG’s reputation, degrade the firm’s financial standing, freeze its access to capital, and torpedo the anticipated merger between Digital World Acquisition Corporation (DWAC) and TMTG.”
When the $73 million figure first surfaced, Truth Social promptly issued a statement refuting the claim, characterizing it as “utterly false information” and emphasizing that the SEC filing represented a “crucial milestone” towards the proposed merger.
The lawsuit names a diverse range of media outlets, including The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Daily News, MSNBC, CNBC, Forbes, Axios, and Reuters. Additionally, Rolling Stone magazine, the owner of The Hill, British newspapers The Guardian and The Daily Mail, the owner and executive editor of the Miami Herald newspaper, and several online-only outlets, such as Deadline Hollywood, Benzinga, MarketWatch, The Daily Beast, Gizmodo, Mediaite, and Salon, have been named in the legal action.
In response to the lawsuit, some of the named outlets have issued updates to their articles, removing the erroneous $73 million figure.
The lawsuit seeks damages of $1.5 billion and injunctive relief to prevent the further dissemination of the defamatory statements. TMTG has also demanded a jury trial.