As if mounting legal cases were not enough of a threat, Trump-linked entities are now facing increased scrutiny from short-sellers, with Rumble becoming the latest target of Culper Research’s damaging attack.
We’ve been covering Digital World’s mounting woes with alacrity. After all, the SPAC is slated to merge with the Trump Media and Technology Group in a deal that would furnish much-needed cash to Trump’s Truth Social, a Twitter-like social media app.
Amid the ongoing brouhaha around Trump and his media empire, Rumble does not often feature prominently. Well, that oversight has changed today. For the benefit of those who might be unaware, Rumble and Truth Social entered into a partnership in April 2022, whereby the Canadian company would offer video-hosting services to Truth Social. Trump had called the deal a “critical backbone” for Truth Social’s infrastructure.
2) With little revenue generation ability, $RUM's promotion is premised on its claim to have grown to 80M MAUs. But based on numerous sources of independent website traffic and app data, we think this 80M number is a mirage, and $RUM overstates its user base by 66% to 108%.
— Culper (@CulperResearch) April 27, 2023
In a hard-hitting report, Culper Research has made several striking allegations today against Rumble. First, while taking aim at Rumble’s claimed figure of 80 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs), the short-seller cites “independent website traffic and app data” to conclude that the platform has overstated its user base between 66 percent and 108 percent. For instance, SimilarWeb has estimated that Rumble saw a unique web-based audience of just 28.9 million users in Q4 2022.
5) $RUM claimed in SPAC prospectuses that MAUs were tied to unique users, but now admits it cannot actually track. A former $RUM exec told us straight up that $RUM double-, triple-, and quadruple-counts users: "If I have four devices, then that counts as four different accounts."
— Culper (@CulperResearch) April 27, 2023
A key reason behind this discrepancy is the fact that Rumble now “double-, triple-, and quadruple-counts users” by relying on the number of logged devices instead of unique user-identifying signatures.
6) $RUM CEO Pavlovski appears to have lied before. In Feb 2018, he said $RUM had 100M MAUs, then a Nov 2020 profile said $RUM grew from 40M to 80M users. $RUM's SPAC prospectus then showed just 1.6M MAUs for Q3 2020, suggesting that Pavlovski is just making it all up as he goes. pic.twitter.com/aNKDnE6wsb
— Culper (@CulperResearch) April 27, 2023
What’s more, Rumble’s CEO, Chris Pavlovski, has a history of fudging numbers.
8) $RUM now appears to rely substantially on malware to drive inbound site interest. We estimate 37% of site traffic in March 2023 (most recent available) was driven by adware redirect programs rather than genuine human interest. Unsurprisingly, advertisers are skeptical of $RUM.
— Culper (@CulperResearch) April 27, 2023
In what, however, constitutes a coup d'état, Culper Research has alleged that as much as 37 percent of Rumble site traffic in March 2023 was driven by malware!
10) $RUM also stakes its promotion on the claim that it owns its own data centers and is insulated from "Big Tech" such as AWS. Pavlovski even claimed "we've never relied on a single cloud infrastructure provider out there." This is garbage: $RUM's IR team even told us so. pic.twitter.com/VSdFKr3NL3
— Culper (@CulperResearch) April 27, 2023
Moreover, as per the company’s own IR team and contrary to what Rumble publicly claims, it does not, in fact, own data centers.
13/13) $RUM is now being sued by a former investor for $400M, as he alleges Pavlovski cheated him out of his 20% stake in the Company. Any potential settlement could put a substantial dent in the Company's dwindling cash balance. We're short and think shares are headed lower. pic.twitter.com/R7rdG6x1XK
— Culper (@CulperResearch) April 27, 2023
Finally, Rumble is being sued by a former investor who alleges that Pavlovski cheated him out of a 20 percent stake in the company.
Should these allegations hold water, they would add to the general feeling of chaos that one is compelled to notice in the camp of former US President Trump.
Given the hard-hitting nature of these allegations, Rumble shares are down around 7 percent at the time of writing. Year to date, however, the stock is still surprisingly up 22 percent. We will update this post with any comments that we receive from Rumble regarding today’s development. Stay tuned.
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
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