In 2023, Donald Trump Jr. stood on a podium at the New York Stock Exchange to celebrate the debut of PublicSquare, a little-known online marketplace founded as a MAGA alternative to Amazon and other e-commerce sites.

Company executives hoped Trump Jr., an early investor and board member whose father pushed to snuff out progressive politics in American boardrooms, would help drive business to their "anti-woke" marketplace. They envisioned the marketplace as a place where American brands could sell household goods and family products to conservative, patriotic and religious consumers.

Three years later, PublicSquare is struggling.

The company's marketplace failed to gain traction with consumers, and its underlying business model later fell apart, executives acknowledged, after President Trump embraced the tech companies he had attacked on the campaign trail.

Financial losses began piling up following years of excessive spending. The company has reported cumulative losses of nearly $160 million since going public, through the end of July, and remains unprofitable. Its stock has cratered by 99% since it went public in 2023.

The company made an early bet that prominent Trump allies, including the president's son, would help put PublicSquare on the map.

Starting in 2024, shortly after Trump won the presidential election, the West Palm Beach, Fla., company paid Trump Jr. $42,000 a month in consulting fees. Last year, Trump Jr. was making more than the company's then-CEO. Former Trump administration official Nick Ayers and a firm run by Trump Jr. ally Omeed Malik were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by PublicSquare for consulting work and other services.

This year, PublicSquare said it had abandoned its e-commerce marketplace, announcing it would become a financial technology company instead. The company has also shut down a television show that executives hoped would drive conservatives to its marketplace and sold off a diaper brand marketed to antiabortion consumers. The NYSE recently notified the company that it was at risk of losing its listing.

"PublicSquare made some big bets years ago that did not pay off, but the board has course-corrected, and believes in the current management team," said Blake Masters, the company's lead independent director whom Trump endorsed twice in congressional campaigns. "The results this year are plain: more revenue, lower costs, and on-track for cash flow positivity in 2027."

Earlier this month, members of the company's board, including Trump Jr., invested a total of $1.3 million into the company. "This is not charity," Trump Jr. said in a statement. "I still believe in the mission, and new management is finally delivering on it."

A flashy debut

The day of PublicSquare's listing on the NYSE was a brief high for the company. Trump Jr., its most prominent investor, stood with his friend and business partner Malik, chanting "USA, USA," as then-CEO Michael Seifert rang the opening bell.

Trump Jr. and former Trump campaign adviser Alex Bruesewitz were among those who toasted the company's launch in a private NYSE boardroom before the bell-ringing. Other attendees included Ayers and Kimberly Guilfoyle, who was dating Trump Jr. at the time and later joined the second Trump administration as the U.S. ambassador to Greece.

PublicSquare's financial problems became clear almost as soon as it hit the market. In 2024 and 2025, the company reported steep overhead costs, its financial filings show.

The net losses dwarfed its revenues. After going public in 2023 through a merger with Malik's special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, it has posted full-year net losses of $36.6 million in 2025 and $57.6 million in 2024. In the first half of 2026, it lost $12.1 million. The SPAC had originally provided nearly $60 million in gross equity proceeds to help PublicSquare get listed, according to a filing.

The losses were largely driven by its compensation and consulting agreements, payroll and other administrative expenses, PublicSquare's securities filings show. In 2024, the company reported about $43.3 million in general and administrative expenses, nearly double its revenues that year.

In 2025, Trump Jr. was paid more than $500,000 in consulting fees. Seifert, the company's CEO, meanwhile, drew a salary of $300,000. Seifert resigned from his post in January.

Other Trump allies also received lucrative payments during their time working with the company. A brokerage firm founded by Malik was paid more than $650,000 for consulting work, and Ayers received nearly $400,000 in payments.

Trump Jr. was the only PublicSquare director who didn't attend at least 75% of its meetings last year, according to the company's securities filings. He made it to about 60%, filings show.

Trump Jr.'s spokesman declined to comment and referred The Wall Street Journal to PublicSquare. William Kent, PublicSquare's head of investor relations, defended the compensation and said that Trump Jr.'s role included helping bring his supporters to PublicSquare's website.

"Mr. Trump's compensation reflected the fact that he is a well-known public figure who speaks directly to an audience the Marketplace was built to reach," Kent said in a statement. "His involvement drove real traffic to the Marketplace."

Later, as the marketplace wound down, Trump Jr. "worked to help the company close and maintain material relationships in payment processing and our other fintech offerings," Kent said. Trump Jr.'s consulting work was "put on hold in early 2026" following the closing of PublicSquare's marketplace, he said. Kent added that Malik and Ayers had brought networks and expertise relevant to the company's plans.

Malik's firm advised PublicSquare on the purchase of a financial technology company, and Malik introduced the business to his allies in the financial sector, among other forms of guidance, according to a person familiar with the matter and public records.

Trump Jr. and other board members also received shares of the company worth millions of dollars at the time. Kent said to the company's knowledge, none of the current members of the board, including Trump Jr., have sold their PublicSquare stock, other than for tax purposes. That means they missed the opportunity to cash out when shares were at their highest price. Shortly after the company announced Trump Jr. would join the board in late 2024, PublicSquare's share price more than tripled.

'Too many brands'

The financial struggles place PublicSquare among a group of businesses that have enriched Trump's family and political allies while proving less profitable for investors that bought into their business pitch.

Trump recently reported $1.4 billion in earnings last year from memecoin and crypto ventures. Many of the buyers of the president's memecoin have lost big-as of July, roughly two-thirds of investors in the coin were in the red, according to data from Nansen.

PublicSquare said it had laid off 41% of its workforce as part of a restructuring tied to its pivot toward operating as a financial technology company. The layoffs affected employees on PublicSquare's marketing team and on a company-branded streaming show, "PublicSquare Live."

The show, hosted by Erin Scavino-who is now the wife of the president's deputy chief of staff, Dan Scavino-was canceled just months after launching on the conservative network Real America's Voice. Show team members were told at the time their jobs were cut because of the company's financial struggles, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

"We took a business built on addition, too many brands, too much scope, too much head count, too much story, and we cut it down to the parts that actually move money and make margin," PublicSquare CEO Dusty Wunderlich said in late July when the company reported its latest results.

He also said the company's past leadership, which included Seifert, made "poor decisions and overcommitment" and that resulted in PublicSquare's equity value declining. Seifert declined to comment on Wunderlich's criticism of past leaders.

PublicSquare will now focus on its financial technology business, according to company executives. In March 2024, the company acquired Credova, a point-of-sale financing company with a particular focus on providing buy-now-pay-later loans for firearms, in an all-stock deal. PublicSquare's website now redirects to Credova's website.

End of government probe

After Public Square acquired Credova, it faced another problem: A Consumer Financial Protection Bureau investigation launched during the Biden administration. CFPB lawyers were concerned that consumers were being misled about Credova's financing of pets and ammunition, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

The probe was closed in August 2025, just weeks after Bruesewitz, Seifert and PublicSquare's general counsel made their case directly to the CFPB at a meeting at the bureau's office, across the street from the White House, according to a person in the room at the time. Kent said PublicSquare didn't convince the CFPB to drop the case and that the agency made its own independent judgment.

Credova, Kent said, fully complied with laws requiring the transparent disclosure of the terms of its leases, adding that "the matter was resolved with no finding of wrongdoing."

A CFPB spokeswoman didn't respond to a request for comment on the agency's decision to end the Credova probe.

Some vendors, in interviews, said they believed PublicSquare's focus on politics may have turned away potential customers interested in a marketplace featuring American-made products from small-business owners.

Perry Milou is a Philadelphia artist who tried to sell prints of "Courage47," a painting of his inspired by the image of President Trump surviving his 2024 assassination attempt, on PublicSquare.