NEW YORK (AP) — Launched by the Trump family four years ago with great fanfare, Truth Social was not just going take on Twitter and Facebook as a “free speech” alternative but maybe even challenge Netflix by streaming movies.

The stock soared. The business never took off.

On Tuesday, the parent company of the once hoped-for social media giant announced it was shaking up its leadership. Out is its long time CEO, former farmer turned Republican congressman Devin Nunes, replaced by seasoned digital executive, Kevin McGurn.

He has his work cut out for him.

Trump Media & Technology, which owns Truth Social, has diversified far away from its original social media mandate into cryptocurrency, finance, even nuclear power. Investors are still fleeing. The stock is down more than 60% since Donald Trump was reelected president in November 2024, wiping out $6 billion in shareholder wealth.

Born in anger — and controversy

Trump launched the social media platform in early 2022 after being banned by Twitter and Facebook from posting on their sites after the January 6, 2021, riots that aimed to overturn the election.

It was angry beginning for a business, and a messy one.

A publicly traded shell company that Truth Social merged with so it could tap stock traders for money was investigated by federal regulators for misleading investors, culminating in a multimillion-dollar penalty. A board member was even sentenced to prison for insider trading.

Then Trump got allowed back on Facebook and Twitter, a seeming victory for the then ex-president. But it also undercut his new business, as platforms — particularly X, the new name for Twitter — scaled back moderation, weakening the case for Truth Social as a refuge from censorship.

Heavy losses

Years later, Truth Social is still struggling to attract users beyond the president’s core supporters despite his using it for major political announcements — a practice criticized by government ethics experts as a conflict of interest with the presidency. Truth Social’s monthly audience declined both on the web and on its mobile app year-over-year in March, according to digital market analysis firm Similarweb.

Trump Media has lost more than $1 billion in the past two years and the stock has reflected those financial struggles. After closing at about $62 shortly after it went public in 2024, the stock has plunged into the single digits.

Enter crypto

As the platform has languished, the company has branched into other businesses.

In August, Trump Media said it was starting a new cryptocurrency business by teaming up with partners, including a company called Crypto.com. The idea was to hold massive amounts of a Crypto.com token called Cronos to create a Trump Media “digital ecosystem” in which users could use them instead of dollars to make payments, earn rewards and pay for services.

Trump Media is also betting on another alternative currency, raising $2.5 billion last year to load up on bitcoin. In this way it was echoing moves by MicroStrategy, a software developer that transformed itself into a bitcoin holding company by buying up the currency.

Whether the Trump company’s new ventures will work out is unclear, but MicroStrategy’s story could be a cautionary tale. The value of its bitcoin has cratered in the past several months, sinking MicroStrategy’s holdings, along with Trump Media’s. Since July, stock in the once soaring MicroStrategy has dropped nearly 60%.

Going Nuclear

In December, Trump Media announced it was moving in another direction by merging with a nuclear fusion company, a promising but far-off energy technology.

The appeal is that fusion someday could offer a way of powering the data centers needed to build and run AI research and services that are suddenly all the rage — and also threatening higher electricity bills.

The move has drawn criticism because nuclear energy is heavily regulated and Trump is not only a major Truth Social shareholder. As U.S. president, he has power to help his companies and hurt their rivals through rules, laws and government funding.

And the Trump administration isn’t taking a hands-off approach. In October, the U.S. Department of Energy released a “road map” showing how it could help the “burgeoning fusion private sector industry” to scale up on a ”rapid timeline.”

“There’s a huge conflict of interest,” said Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. “The United States government is going to get all involved in it.”

Brave face

The new CEO, Kevin McGurn, has worked at NBC Universal, Hulu and DoubleClick, among other companies and so has plenty of business experience that Nunes lacked.

McGurn said Tuesday in a statement that the company was “poised to take off.”

“In carrying President Trump’s unique, singular vision and message, Truth Social stands for the most powerful brand and voice in history of social media and beyond,” he said.

But investors are still not convinced. On Wednesday afternoon, even with the news that McGurn was coming aboard, the stock fell sharply, down 3.5% to $9.48.

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Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco contributed.

Bernard Condon, The Associated Press