Donald Trump’s Truth Social opened to significantly larger than expected numbers in the stock market last week, but John Oliver still isn’t buying it. On Sunday’s episode of “Last Week Tonight,” the HBO host debunked the platform with a pretty NSFW comparison.
During his first segment of the night, Oliver explained that $DJT has basically become a “meme stock,” and pointed out that it’s being pushed on social media exactly as other meme stocks have — with literal memes. One that particularly delighted Oliver was a gif of an eagle-shaped erection.
“Truth Social is kind of like a penis, in that a lot of sad men on the internet spend their time lying about how big it is, and what it can do for you,” he joked.
Speaking seriously on the topic, Oliver explained that Truth Social really isn’t profitable in execution.
“You should know, the financials for the company are a wreck,” he said. “It’s lost $57 million since its inception, and won’t release user data, even though that’s the key metric for social media companies. It also had to re-file its financial statements with the SEC after it put its revenue in the wrong line in an Excel spreadsheet.”
He added that the only reason the stock is doing so well is because “Trump supporters believe buying it is a way to simultaneously own the libs, give Trump money and, they’d argue, make a profit themselves.”
Oliver compared the boom in Truth Social’s stock to that of GameStop and AMC Theaters, but pointed out a key difference, at least in the former.
“The GameStop movement was at least nominally about wresting financial power away from sh–ty rich assholes, and restoring it to the little guy,” Oliver said. “Whereas this movement is about funneling the little guy’s money directly to the sh–tiest rich asshole there is.”
The latest episode of “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” aired on HBO on Sunday and is streaming on Max.