Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social, announced Tuesday that it is replacing CEO Devin Nunes with digital executive Kevin McGurn, a shakeup that arrives as the firm’s stock continues to fall and as the company’s strategy has drifted far from its original social-media mission.
Nunes, a former Republican congressman, had led the company since the Truth Social parent emerged from years of controversy around its origins and investors’ willingness to bet on it. McGurn, in contrast, has built his career in digital advertising and technology, with experience that includes work at NBC Universal, Hulu and DoubleClick, and he said the company is “poised to take off.”
The company’s shift in leadership marks a new chapter for Trump Media after years in which the platform failed to deliver the growth investors expected when Truth Social debuted in early 2022. Launched by the Trump family with the goal of offering a “free speech” alternative to major social networks, Truth Social was also initially pitched as a wider media play, including streaming ambitions.
As the social-media business stalled, the company diversified into other ventures, including cryptocurrency and finance, and it has also pursued a nuclear fusion angle. The move reflects an effort to build an “ecosystem” beyond posting and engagement, even as the company’s shares have continued to decline.
Trump Media said it has been developing cryptocurrency plans, including a push to work with partners such as Crypto.com and to build around a token called Cronos. The company has also raised money to buy bitcoin, echoing a strategy made famous by MicroStrategy, a software firm that transformed itself into a bitcoin holding company after buying large amounts of the cryptocurrency.
Investors have not been rewarded for the pivot so far. After shares closed at about $62 shortly after the company went public in 2024, the stock later plunged into the single digits. Investors’ losses have been tied, in part, to the company’s broader financial struggles, including more than $1 billion in losses over the past two years, according to the report.
Truth Social’s user growth has also lagged. The report said the company’s monthly audience declined both on the web and on its mobile app year-over-year in March, citing digital market analysis firm Similarweb. That decline has continued even as Trump used Truth Social for major political announcements, a practice that critics including government ethics experts have said raises conflict concerns given the presidency.
The company’s latest diversification step has come with nuclear fusion. In December, Trump Media announced it was merging with a nuclear fusion company, a technology that is still far from commercial availability. The report said the appeal is that fusion could eventually power data centers needed for AI research and services, at a time when data-center demand is increasing and electricity costs are a concern.
The fusion plan has drawn criticism on conflict-of-interest grounds. Richard Painter, who served as chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, said the situation presents a “huge conflict of interest” and that “The United States government is going to get all involved in it.” The report also pointed to a U.S. Department of Energy “road map” released in October describing how the government could help the “burgeoning fusion private sector industry” scale up on a “rapid timeline.”
McGurn said Tuesday that the company is focused on scaling up, telling investors in a statement that Truth Social “stands for the most powerful brand and voice in history of social media and beyond,” while carrying President Trump’s message forward. Even with the announcement, the report said the stock fell sharply on Wednesday afternoon, dropping 3.5% to $9.48.
The company’s leadership change arrives amid a debate over whether the new ventures can turn around a business whose core platform has struggled to broaden its audience beyond Trump’s supporters, and whether the company’s ties to government policy create reputational and ethical risks as it seeks new revenue sources.
On Tuesday, the company made clear that it intends to move forward with a management reset as it pursues crypto and fusion themes—while investors weigh whether those bets can overcome mounting losses and a stock-price slide that has erased billions in shareholder value since Trump’s 2024 election victory.