Trump Media and Technology Group has already officially merged with Digital World Acquisition Corp., allowing Truth Social to be public domain, subject to the judgment of the American stock market.
The move was motivated by President Donald Trump’s efforts to ensure future financial success while battling multiple court cases, which seems to be draining the former president’s bank accounts.
Initially, Truth Social showed tremendous promise when it stepped onto Wall Street, with Trump Media share prices very high, valued at almost eighty dollars.
“Trump Media shared surged to as high as $79.38 on March 26, the day trading began on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol ‘DJT,’” according to CNN.
The premature success of the fairly new social media company caused President Trump’s shares to be valued at billions of dollars, a much-needed financial rescue for Trump.
As reports of Truth Social’s lackluster profits became known, however, Trump Media’s values started to plummet, causing billions to be shaved off of President Trump’s valuations.
“The selloff has erased nearly $2 billion from the value of former President Donald Trump’s stake in the company this week…Trump’s personal stake in the company is now valued at about $3.2 billion. That’s down from $4.9 billion at the end of last week,” according to CNN.
Even though share prices have vastly fallen over the past week, President Trump can still use Truth Social to make a decent chunk of cash through a provision payout method Trump Media intends to execute, should the value stay up.
“Trump is Trump Media’s biggest shareholder, with 57.3 percent of the company, or 78.7 million shares — a stake worth about $3.2 billion based on the stock’s closing price Friday.
“Through an ‘earnout’ provision, Trump stands to receive another 36 million shares if the price stays above $17.50 for 20 days, which could happen as soon as April 26 and would raise his total stake to $4.7 billion,” according to the Washington Post.
Trump has made an agreement with the company prohibiting himself from selling his shares for six months, but being the company’s largest shareholder, the restriction can be waived – allowing Trump to cash in his shares and stick it to the court fines.
“A six-month “lockup” agreement says Trump can’t sell or transfer his shares until Sept. 25 — or possibly a few days earlier, if the stock hits a certain price threshold.
“Trump could ask the company’s board to waive that requirement but has yet to do so. The lockup also applies to company executives and board members,” according to the Washington Post.
Will Trump be able to use Truth Social as a bail-out from his financial demands in court? Well, it seems, like a good businessman, there are some measures in place to allow Trump to try and benefit as much as possible from Wall Street’s involvement.
Despite Wall Street billionaires whining about Truth Social’s loss of profits, there could be a long-term interest the instant gratification billionaires are not seeing.
Just over the past year, pre-merger, Trump Media skyrocketed in share value.
“Trump Media’s shares have lost about a third of their value this week. Despite this week’s losses, Trump Media shares have still spiked by more than 130% so far this year,” according to CNN.
With the money Truth Social has sitting in the bank, it seems the company has a great amount of potential, even if profit performance has been less-than-ideal over the past couple of years.
Whether or not President Trump is able to massively gain from his Wall Street gamble is up to the market, which may or may not have been a mistake.
A mixed trail of surprising wins and lackluster performance will follow the former president around for the foreseeable future.
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