Truth Social, whose parent company, Trump Media and Technology, went public earlier this year in a merger with a listed special purpose acquisition company, is trying to build a social media company from scratch.

It has just 9 million users and less than $1 million in revenue. A merger with X would eliminate much of its costs and allow it to join the larger company’s content moderation capabilities, security and advertising sales teams.

While it may seem strange for one company to own two rival networks, there is precedent for this: online dating group Match already has competing services Tinder, Match and Hinge. Meanwhile, for Musk, merging Truth would turn a rival into an ally.

X scored a coup earlier this month when US President Joe Biden used Musk’s network to announce he was ending his re-election campaign. If Trump wins the race for the White House on 5 November, his own platform could be the first to get presidential news stories.