Trump Media Shares Hit Lowest Level Ever
Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) shares hit their lowest level ever when the stock market opened on Friday.
Friday marked the first day former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, could sell his stake in TMTG, which owns social media site Truth Social.
Despite Wall Street closing at record highs yesterday after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a large half-percentage point, shares of Trump Media fell almost 7 percent to $13.73 on Friday, which left the value of the company at less than $3 billion.
Trump owns 57 percent of the company, which trades as DJT on the Nasdaq. Trump’s stake is now worth about $1.6 billion, at least on paper, according to TMTG’s share price early Friday.
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, via email for comment late Friday morning.
When his company went live in March, shares hit a high of $79.38, but have since gone up and down, often depending on good or bad news related to Trump.
In mid-July, TMTG’s stock increased over 31 percent after Trump’s first assassination attempt. Meanwhile, TMTG’s stock dropped over 10 percent earlier this month following the first presidential debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee who was widely thought of as the winner of the debate.
Since March, Trump and other insiders in the company have been under a standard lock-up agreement that prevents big stakeholders from selling their shares for some time after a company goes public. Today is the first day Trump and other big stakeholders in TMTG are able to sell.
Trump said last week that he had no intention of selling his shares, which caused his company’s stock to jump nearly 12 percent.
It is usually not in the best interest of big stakeholders to even try to sell a lot of their stake in a company because it could trigger more stakeholders to sell their shares.
TMTG’s worth has declined as it loses money and struggles to gain revenue. It lost nearly $58.2 million last year and only gained $4.1 million in revenue, according to regulatory filings.
Meanwhile, yesterday was a strong day for Wall Street as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 both saw all-time highs. The Dow Jones index closed above the 42,000 level for the first time and the S&P 500 index jumped roughly 1.7 percent. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite climbed roughly 2.5 percent.
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.
Update 9/20/24 11:33 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.