Trump is $800 million poorer since Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee

01 August 2024

The stock price for former President Donald Trump's social media company has been on a precipitous slide since late July — notably since President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

According to a Thursday report in CNN, the stock price for Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) – the parent company of his Truth Social microblogging platform — has dropped by roughly 20% in value since July 21, when Biden announced he was no longer seeking a second term in the White House. Because Trump owns such a large stake in the company, CNN estimated that the ex-president has lost roughly $800 million in personal net worth due to the stock's poor performance.

As of Thursday afternoon, MarketWatch data shows TMTG is trading at $27.12 per share, which is down significantly from the $34.70 share price posted on July 22. The stock is also showing no signs of rebounding anytime soon, losing $4 per share in trading value over just the last five days alone.

TMTG's share price has also taken blows in the past after Trump himself suffered setbacks. In late May, when a New York jury convicted him on all 34 felony counts in his hush money cover-up trial, the former president lost roughly $500 million in personal net worth after his social media's stock took a dive.

As the majority shareholder with more than 114.7 million shares, Trump's personal finances are deeply dependent on TMTG's performance in financial markets. Earlier this year, the stock — which trades as $DJT on the Nasdaq Composite — became a favorite target of "short sellers," who make money by betting on the failure of a particular stock.

Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes, who was a former Republican congressman from California, accused some of those short sellers of engaging in an illegal tactic known as "naked" shorting, in which a short seller doesn't first secure the shares before shorting them. A spokesperson for Citadel Securities ripped Nunes for being a "proverbial loser" eager to blame his company's poor performance in the markets on naked shorting, and called him "exactly the type of person" Trump would have fired on his reality show "The Apprentice."

The stock's lackluster performance since going public at nearly $70 per share in March may also be due to the company's balance sheet. In 2023, the company posted $58 million in losses and disappointing revenue of just over $4 million according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

While Trump may be tempted to liquidate his shares for cash given that he owes hundreds of millions of dollars in civil judgments and is running a nationwide presidential campaign, he is prohibited from doing so under a legally binding agreement he signed before the company went public. Under the terms of that agreement, Trump can't sell any of his shares for at least six months, meaning he wouldn't be able to liquidate any TMTG stock until late September at the earliest.

The former president's social media company has also been consumed by litigation since it launched its initial public offering (IPO) this spring. In TMTG's first week of trading, the stock lost roughly $4 billion, prompting Trump to sue his two business partners for allegedly botching the merger that led to the IPO. His partners have in turn filed a counter suit.

Click here to read CNN's report in full.

From Your Site Articles