“You juice my stock, I’ll juice yours.”

When I first saw reports that Gina Rinehart (the richest person in Australia) was upping her bet on Trump’s Truth Social, my immediate thought was, this makes about as much sense as buying a timeshare in North Korea from a guy on Craigslist. Because for starters, Truth Social isn’t a business, it’s a very expensive group chat. The platform somehow managed to pull in a depressing $800K in revenue last quarter… while simultaneously flushing $20 million Washington’s down the toilet. This is like me bragging, “I made $8 on DoorDash last night,” but leaving out the part where I spent $200 on gas, tolls, and a Wendy pit stop on the way. Math clearly isn’t their strong suit (to be fair, neither is app design).

To go from “dumb” to “dumber,” the stock’s down 47% this year. Think about it, if Trump’s name wasn’t stamped all over it (in the middle of his Presidency), this thing would be floating in the clouds with RadioShack, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Harambe (RIP king). And yet, Rinehart increased her stake by 67%, bringing her total to around $4.5 million. Why? Does she know something the rest of us don’t? Did Truth Social suddenly figure out how to make money? (Spoiler: no.) Here’s where the Scooby-Doo detective work pays off. Turns out this isn’t about Truth Social at all… it’s about Trump himself.

You see, Rinehart’s fortune didn’t just come from the mountains of iron ore in Western Australia that she inherited (though, yes, inheriting a multi-billion-dollar mining company does help). Her real growth lately has been tied to critical minerals (rare earths, uranium, copper) the kind of stuff Uncle Sam gets nervous about when China tightens the spigot.

(Source: Forbes Australia)

That’s where MP Materials enters the chat. For reference, MP is the U.S.’s only rare earth producer that actually matters and Rinehart owns about 8% of it. So when Trump stood up on March 4, 2025 and declared the U.S. would “dramatically expand” domestic production of rare earths, it wasn’t just another line in a speech… it was basically a free pump for her portfolio. The market heard it, loved it, and MP’s stock ripped nearly 15% overnight. Which, in plain English, meant Rinehart woke up $45 million richer the next morning. Call it luck if you want, but it sure as hell looked more like the President handing her a golden ticket than a random market move.

And then, just a few months later, the jackpot got even sweeter. In July, the Department of Defense rolled in with a massive contract for MP, and almost overnight Rinehart’s stake swelled to more than $1 billion. That’s the point where her $4.5 million bet on Trump’s Truth Social stops looking like a clueless gamble and starts looking like greasing the wheels. She props up his struggling social platform, and in return he backs policies that make her mining empire gush cash like Powell’s money printer during 2020. In short, everybody wins… well, everybody except the poor souls holding Truth Social stock who don’t happen to be Gina Rinehart.

So yeah, when I first saw the headline, I thought Rinehart was blowing money just for fun (or maybe spent too much time on the WallStreetBets subreddit). But now it’s obvious: this isn’t investing… it’s lobbying with extra steps. It’s like paying $7 million for a 30-second Super Bowl ad. Nobody actually remembers your commercial, but you bought yourself bragging rights and a spot in the room with the big boys. Sometimes it pays to read books like: How to Win Friends and Influence People (or at least watch a youtube video about it).

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News doesn’t hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.