Donald Trump’s media company, the proud owner of Truth Social, has reported a $238m loss for the second quarter. That is a lot of money to lose while also owning a platform that the US president uses to announce policy, but hey, at least they’re diversifying.

Trump Media & Technology, under its new chief executive Kevin McGurn, revealed on Monday that the losses in the three months through June came as the company branched into ventures like crypto. But after a yearlong dalliance with online betting and crypto, the company has decided to refocus on social media. McGurn explained on a conference call: “We made the disciplined choice to pivot in order to invest more time and resources in our most important initiatives. We will say no to things or change course as warranted.” Because nothing says discipline like losing a quarter of a billion dollars.

The new cornerstone of this social media focus is Truth API, a service that will sell early access to Truth Social posts by Trump and other top users to Wall Street trading firms. For a cool $60,000 to $100,000 a month, high-frequency trading firms - who buy and sell in milliseconds - can get a head start on the market-moving announcements that Trump regularly drops on his platform. McGurn says they’ve already signed up 10 customers, mostly those millisecond traders.

Naturally, government watchdogs are thrilled. Kathleen Clark, a government conflicts of interest expert at Washington University School of Law, told the Associated Press: “[Trump is] selling expedited, privileged access to information about what he is doing as president. It’s yet more brazen corruption, an improper exploitation of government power to enrich himself.” McGurn, however, waved off concerns, noting that “providing licensed real-time public data through commercial APIs is a well-established business practice across the technology, financial information and media industries. This is no different.” Because everything is fine when everyone does it.

While refocusing on social media, Trump Media will still pursue its previously announced nuclear fusion venture, aiming to close a merger with energy company TAE Technologies by year’s end. Because if you’re going to lose money, why not do it in style?

In the second quarter, Trump Media posted $1.7m in revenue - more than double from a year earlier, which is almost impressive until you remember the $238m loss. The company has $1bn in debt from special convertible notes not due until 2028, but lenders can demand payment in November, which would be a hit - though the company has ample cash: over $400m in cash and short-term investments, plus $1.2bn in bitcoin and bitcoin-related assets. So they’re rich enough to lose money and still sleep at night.