The company running Donald Trump's new social media platform says it has entered into agreements to raise over US$1 billion from investors prior to its launch.
The former reality television show host and US President announced TRUTH Social in October after having been banned from both Twitter and Facebook following the January 6 insurrectionist attack on the Capitol in Washington DC.
In a statement, Trump said the money raised means his company Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) will be "in a stronger position to fight back against the tyranny of Big Tech".
"$1 billion sends an important message to Big Tech that censorship and political discrimination must end. America is ready for TRUTH Social, a platform that will not discriminate on the basis of political ideology."
The platform is due to be officially launched early next year and will be followed by a streaming platform called TMTG+.
According to the company the video streaming service is "expected to include access to non-woke entertainment, news, documentaries, podcasts and more".
Despite not having launched yet, TRUTH Social has had numerous issues already.
Shortly after it was announced, the site was defaced after users found a public sign-up link, with one creating an account in Trump's name. The person then posted the equivalent of a pinned tweet on Twitter, which simply had a picture of a pig defecating, a popular meme image called 'Pig Poop Balls'.
Despite saying it was "open, free and honest" and anti-censorship, the platform will ban users who posted TRUTHS using too many capital letters, a trademark of Trump's tweets before he was banned from that platform.
The Apple App Store listing also created issues, with the platform creating fake posts from companies including the New York Times, prompting the newspaper to contact the platform to say its use was unauthorised.
And just last week it was revealed that TRUTH Social had finally acknowledged it was based on the open source project Mastodon.
Using the software is allowed, but the license mandates that it's acknowledged and the source code and modifications are made available on the website.
Instead TRUTH Social said the site was proprietary and all source code and software was owned or controlled by them or licensed to them.
Only after Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko contacted the platform's chief legal officer did the site fall into line with its obligations.
If it had failed to do so it would have resulted in a breach of copyright and left it vulnerable to legal action.
