Trump Media and Technology Group, whose flagship product is social-networking site Truth Social, will begin trading on the Nasdaq stock market on Tuesday.
Shareholders of Digital World Acquisition, a publicly traded shell company, approved a deal to merge with the group’s media business in a Friday vote.
Shares of Digital World have been volatile. On Friday, the stock slumped 13.7 per cent after the merger was approved. In afternoon trading on Monday, it soared 22 per cent to $45.40.
Former president Donald Trump is set to own most of the combined company – or nearly 79 million shares.
Multiply that by Digital World’s closing stock price Friday of $36.94, and the total value of his stake could be nearly $3 billion.
Mr Trump will not be able to cash out his stake in the Palm Beach, Florida-based company immediately, unless the company’s board makes changes to a “lock-up” provision that prevents insiders from selling newly issued shares for six months.
The former president was in New York on Monday attending a hearing on his criminal hush-money case.
Elsewhere, a New York appeals court reduced his $454 million civil fraud judgment to $175 million if he puts up that amount within 10 days.
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Truth Social was launched in February 2022, one year after Mr Trump was banned from major social platforms including Facebook and X, formerly Twitter, after the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.
He has since been reinstated to both but has stuck with Truth Social. Mr Trump has promoted Truth Social on the platform. On Friday he posted “I love Truth Social”.
Trump Media has not so far disclosed Truth Social’s user numbers but now that the company is publicly traded, more information will be disclosed.
Research firm Similarweb estimates that it had about five million active mobile and web users in February.
That is far below TikTok’s more than two billion and Facebook’s three billion – but still higher than other “alt-tech” rivals such as Parler, which has been offline for nearly a year but is planning a comeback, or Gettr, which had less than two million visitors in February.
Trump Media lost $49 million in the first nine months of last year, when it brought in about $3.4 million in revenue and had to pay $37.7 million in interest expenses.
The common stock of Trump Media and Technology Group will trade under the ticker symbol “DJT”.
Updated: March 26, 2024, 3:00 AM
