Trump Media stock hit a new low right before Donald Trump can dump his shares
Trump Media & Technology Group stock hit a new post-merger low of $14.56 per share just hoursbefore the company’s lock-up agreement is set to end.
Shares of Trump Media, the company behind Former President Donald Trump’s right-wing social media platform Truth Social, sunk more than 6% Thursday. After hitting the low, shares rebounded slightly to $14.67apiece.
The share slide comes one day before the end of a six-month lockup period, which required Trump to hold onto his shares in the company for at least 180 days after going public, so long as shares stayed above $12. If Trump were to sell off all his shares in the company, he would stand to make upward of $2 billion.
Despite the considerable windfall that a sell-off could generate, however, Trump said last week that he has “absolutely” no plans to dump his stake in the company.
“The reason I built it is because I don’t want to have my voice shut down,” Trump said during a press conference at his golf course near Los Angeles. “A lot of people think that I will sell my shares, you know, they’re worth billions of dollars, but I don’t want to sell my shares. I don’t need money.”
Trump holds 114.75 million shares of Trump Media, or about 60% of the company’s outstanding stock. Much of the company’s success is tied to the former president, and the company has warned that “adverse reactions to publicity relating to [Trump], or the loss of his services, could adversely affect TMTG’s revenues and results of operations.”
Since going public on the Nasdaq on March 26 under the ticker DJT, Trump Media stock has fallen nearly 75%, bringing its market capitalization to just over $3 billion. That’s down from highs of more than $8 billion in the weeks after its debut.
A selloff could put further downward pressure on the share price, which has hit multiple new lows in the last few weeks. In a regulatory filing in June, Trump Media cited Trump’s divestment from the company as one of the top risks to its business.
On Tuesday, Trump Media was found legally responsible for breaching an agreement with Patrick Orlando’s ARC Global, and was ordered to hand over 8.19 million of its shares to the company.
