Trump Media sues 20 news outlets over allegedly false loss reports, alleges defamation

The Trump Media & Technology Group, which operates Truth Social, on Monday announced a lawsuit against 20 media organizations over allegedly false reports stating that the company had suffered tens of millions in losses. 

The suit, filed in the Florida state court in Sarasota County, points to a recent slew of news articles claiming the company had lost $73 million, a number the company called an "utter fabrication."

Among the outlets named in the suit are Guardian News and Media, The Hollywood Reporter, the Miami Herald, Reuters, Rolling Stone, The Hill, Deadline Hollywood, Benzinga, MarketWatch, Forbes, Axios, The Daily Beast, Gizmodo, Salon, The New York Daily News, Newsweek, MSNBC Cable, Mediaite, The Dailly Mail, and CNBC.

The lawsuit was made public after business hours, when comments from the defendant media companies could not be obtained. 

"Each defendant, in apparent coordination, reported the exact same false number within approximately 24 hours of one another, each citing to a public Securities and Exchange Commission ('SEC')  filing, in which the mystery $73 million loss appears nowhere," the suit claims.

Last week, the Trump Media & Technology Group filed an amended S-4 registration statement with the SEC to advance its long delayed merger with Digital World Acquisition Corporation, a special purpose acquisition company, that would allow the firm to secure a listing on the stock exchange and raise further capital.

The myriad reports, according to the suit, cited the publicly-available filing in alleging that TMTG suffered a $73 million loss, though that figure appears nowhere in the SEC document.

TMTG alleged that the outlets "deliberately or recklessly published false financial information to advance a preferred and coordinated narrative harmful  to TMTG." They further contended that the defendant organizations had actively worked to thwart the Digital World merger.

"TMTG intends to hold these reckless and malicious media outlets to account for their false reporting and for their seemingly coordinated effort to destroy TMTG and Truth Social," the suit asserted, although the suit does not make a claim for civil conspiracy.

TMTG further stated that it had notified the outlets of their error and sought retractions, conceding that some outlets had issued corrections or updates to their existing articles, but that "none have retracted the defamatory articles, publicly apologized, or taken any other steps to ameliorate the continuing damage."

The Hollywood Reporter, for example, posted a correction at the bottom of the article that reads as follows:

This story has been updated to more accurately reflect TMTG’s net losses as disclosed on its balance sheet. An initial read of the Nov. 13 securities filing, since updated on Nov. 14, reported that Truth Social posted a $50 million loss in 2022, when in fact that figure was listed as a profit.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.