Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, the company majority-owned by Donald Trump that operates the Truth Social social media network, have fallen about 50% off their high since they started trading a little over two weeks ago.
TMTG stock closed at $32.59 per share Friday, rallying late in the day to close up 0.6% — but it’s down 50.7% from its peak closing price of $66.22 per share on March 27, the day after it first started trading on the Nasdaq exchange. The company’s market cap is now about $4.55 billion, down from an intraday peak of more than $9.5 billion on March 26, according to CNBC.
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Trump, the 45th president of the United States who is the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, owns 78.75 million shares of TMTG stock, representing 57.6% of the company’s shares, according to a regulatory filing. That stake is currently worth about $2.6 billion, down from $5.2 billion at TMTG’s top closing price. Trump and other company executives are subject to a lock-up period preventing them from selling the stock for at least six months.
In an 8-K filing April 1 with the SEC, Trump Media disclosed full-year 2023 net sales of $4.13 million, an operating loss of $15.97 million and a net loss of $58.19 million.
Last week, IAC chairman Barry Diller said in an appearance on CNBC that Trump Media is a “scam” and that people buying stock in the company are “dopes.”
A Trump Media spokesperson told CNN, “Truth Social created a free-speech beachhead against Big Tech for a fraction of the start-up and operating costs that the legacy tech corporations incurred. We have no debt, more than $200 million in the bank, and the support of hundreds of thousands of retail investors who fervently believe in our mission.”
TMTG’s mission, per its description of itself, is “to end Big Tech’s assault on free speech by opening up the Internet and giving people their voices back. TMTG operates Truth Social, a social media platform established as a safe harbor for free expression amid increasingly harsh censorship by Big Tech corporations.”
Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group began trading March 26 under the ticker symbol “DJT,” through a merger with special purpose acquisition company Digital World Acquisition Corp.
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