The job offer sounded like a scam. It was the summer of 2021, and no one had heard of Truth Social yet. Alex Gleason received an email out of the blue from a programmer in Alabama, asking questions about some social-media software he had developed. Gleason got on a call with the man to discuss it. The stranger abruptly said he wanted to hire Gleason for an important project, but couldn’t share any details about who would be paying his salary or how his work would be used. Everything was top secret.
“Look, man,” the programmer from Alabama said. “You just got to believe me. This is going to be really big. Are you interested in being part of it?”
Gleason was not the only Truth Social employee recruited in this roundabout way. Most of Silicon Valley skewed Democrat, and searching for technical talent willing to work for Trump was a delicate process. “They were being so secretive,” one software engineer told me. “I didn’t know if it was real or if I was being tricked in some way.” Those who agreed to take the gig nurtured hopes of building a viable alternative to platforms like Twitter and Facebook. After a decade dominated by social media, no one was happy. The mob mentality, the kowtowing to corporate advertisers, the arbitrary enforcement of vague rules. What would something better look like?
Within a few months – before the product they were working on was even ready to show to the public – Truth Social’s parent company would briefly be valued at over $17bn. Then came a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation, accusations of fraud, a glitchy launch, a media pile-on, lawsuits, recriminations, betrayals, tears, tens of millions of dollars in fines and legal fees, and a stockmarket frenzy. In this tumult, the dream of a successful social-media platform that prized free speech and didn’t make people feel like eyeballs was lost. | | |
