Trump’s stake in his social media company is worth about half of what it was before his conviction on charges of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal during the 2016 presidential campaign
Mr. Trump’s roughly 65 percent stake in Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent of Truth Social, was worth roughly $6 billion on May 30, the day a New York jury found him guilty on all 34 charges. Yesterday, the value of his 115 million shares of Trump Media had dropped to about $3.2 billion.
By any measure, Mr. Trump’s stake is still worth a tremendous amount of money. But the social media company’s shares have been extremely volatile, as highlighted by the steep decline this month. As reported in The New York Times.
Trump Media’s stock price traded as high as $66 after its merger with a public shell company in late March, and as low as $23 a few weeks later. The stock, after trading down most of the day Friday, closed at $27.66, up about 3 percent.
The big swing in price is a potential sign of more volatility to come when a provision that bars Mr. Trump from selling his shares expires in September, a few weeks before the presumptive Republican nominee faces President Biden in a presidential election rematch.
Trump Media’s stock has also been weighed down because securities regulators this week allowed early investors in the company to potentially sell tens of millions of shares. Trump Media warned in a filing that the move by the Securities and Exchange Commission “could result in a significant decline in the public trading price of our common stock.”
This week, shares of Trump Media have fallen more than 20 percent on heavier-than-usual trading volumes.
Trump Media went public after completing a long-delayed merger with a cash-rich shell company called Digital World Acquisition Corporation, which had raised money by going public in September 2021, a month before announcing its deal with Trump Media. Early investors in Digital World had stock that became Trump Media as well as warrants that gave them the right to buy more shares at a fixed price after certain regulatory hurdles were cleared.
Another Trump venture on the verge of collapse!
Tony