Trump Rants About Twitter Stock Price the Only Way He Can — Falsely and NOT on Twitter

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Former President Donald Trump ranted about a dip in Twitter’s stock price with one of the brief statements that have become his primary method of communication since being banned from Twitter and leaving office following the deadly Capitol insurrection.

Since Trump was permanently banned from Twitter for inciting violence during the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol, he has been relegated to releasing statements via email through his post-presidential office and his PAC.

On Friday night, he released one such statement that carried many of the hallmarks of a Trump tweet, but not quite the reach. Trump ranted about recent dips in the price of Twitter stock, and falsely claimed that users are flocking away from the social media platform in droves:

Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America

Twitter stock “plunged” as results are no longer cutting it for investors. Shares are off 15% today. Bad forecasts are hurting the outlook but more importantly, in my opinion, it has become totally BORING as people flock to leave the site. Michael Nathanson stated, “the math doesn’t make sense” as he lowered his price target. I guess that’s what happens when you go against FREEDOM OF SPEECH! It will happen to others also.

Trump is correct that Twitter’s stock price has had a rough couple of days to end the week, and that MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson did revise his price target for the stock downward, from $65 to $57.

But according to CNBC, Twitter is growing users and ad revenue significantly, just not enough to satisfy investors. They appear to have missed expectations by what a layperson might consider rather thin margins:

The company reported revenue of $1.04 billion for the quarter, which was up 28% from $808 million a year prior. Twitter also reported a profit of $68 million, contrasted with a loss of $8.4 million a year ago.

Twitter guided that it is expecting revenue between $980 million and $1.08 billion in the second quarter. Analysts were expecting guidance of $1.06 billion on average, according to Refinitiv.

Twitter’s total number of monetizable daily users grew by 7 million from the fourth quarter to 199 million but fell shy of analysts’ expectations of 200 million. The user base was up 20% compared with a year ago. The quarter marked Twitter’s first period mostly without the presence of former President Donald Trump after he was removed from the service following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Twitter ad revenue grew 32% year over year to $899 million, according to the report, with total ad engagement growing 11% over the same period.

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