Since Donald Trump took office, his family’s corporate empire has continued to expand in a multitude of different directions. Over the past six months, Trump’s family has launched a variety of different businesses and products, including several cryptocurrency ventures. Now, Trump’s social media company has signaled that it’s getting into AI.
A press release published Wednesday says that the Trump Media and Technology Group Corp., which owns Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, has applied to register trademarks for “Truth Social AI” and “Truth Social AI Search.” There’s not a whole lot of information about what that means, although it’d be easy to guess: like Trump’s former buddy and benefactor, Elon Musk (who owns X and its AI assistant, Grok), the president seems to want to launch a chatbot to go along with his social media platform. The press release states that the company plans to “develop an artificial intelligence function to appear directly on the Truth Social platform,” which will presumably resemble other generative AI apps on other sites.
In a statement, Trump Media’s CEO and Chairman, Devin Nunes, said: “Integrating AI into Truth Social will be a big push forward in our initiative to expand and enhance the platform, further developing the Truth Social ecosphere as a one-stop-shop for reliable information, non-woke news, and entertainment.”
It’s unclear whether the platform plans to work with an established AI company to produce its “Truth Social AI” or what that AI function will ultimately look like. Developing a proprietary model could cost billions, and it’s unlikely Truth Social could afford the costs. But Trump’s social networking platform is a fork of the open-source project Mastodon. It’s possible that developers could try a similar tactic and integrate one of the open-source AI models that are available on the market. Gizmodo reached out to TMTG for more information.
Trump has been relatively good to the AI industry since taking office, having bolstered plans for broader AI development in the U.S., including encouraging AI companies to invest domestically. His One Big Beautiful Bill also attempted to freeze AI regulation throughout the nation (the amendment ultimately got voted down). As AI is a blossoming market, it only makes sense that Trump would want to get in on the action.
Truth Social, which was launched in 2021 and went public last March, has gone through a number of ups and downs over the years, and its stock price often seems to be in a state of flux. The company recently announced that it plans to pay up to $400 million in a stock buyback effort, a move that doesn’t necessarily signal a healthy corporate outlook. The move was designed to bolster the platform’s “financial flexibility,” according to the Associated Press. That said, who really expected Truth Social to last as long as it has? The company clearly has plans for the future, and that means jumping on the AI bandwagon with all its competitors. Prepare yourselves for a MAGA Grok that is even more MAGA than Grok.
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