The shares of Donald Trump’s company Truth Social, a social media platform, soared around 40% on the first trading day. This could be a huge windfall for the former President.
Trump Media & Technology (parent company of Truth Social) rose to 50 percent before settling at a market cap of about $15 billion (£11.9 billion). The trading was stopped at one point because of volatility.
Truth Social’s CEO Devin Nunes called the listing of the company’s stock on the NASDAQ a “pivotal” moment.
Nunes stated that as a publicly traded company, “we will pursue with passion our vision of building a movement to reclaim Internet from Big Tech’s censors.” Nunes said, “We will continue our commitment to Americans by serving as a haven for free speech and standing up to an ever-growing Army of Speech Suppressors.”
BREAKING: Trump’s media stock ($DJT) is soaring a whopping 50% on its first day.
It has a $15 Billion market cap, higher than EIGHTY companies listed on the S&P 500 including American Airlines.
Trump owns a 58% stake in the company, meaning he is now $9 BILLION richer.
The… pic.twitter.com/yrYMoJ7c1g
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 26, 2024
If the initial price of $50 per share is maintained, Trump Media’s debut could bring him over $3 billion. This would be a substantial increase in his net worth. Trump holds around 79,000,000 shares or about 60 percent, but rules prevent him from selling his holdings within six months.
Bloomberg acknowledged this sudden rise in wealth on Monday when they announced that he was now included on their list of 500 richest people around the world. Donald Trump’s empire of business was expected to be at risk on Monday. The article stated that it was the greatest day ever for the wealth of the former president.
Donald Trump’s $6.4 billion net worth means that he is, for the first time, one of the world’s 500 richest people https://t.co/fqeMhGyzRO
— Bloomberg (@business) March 25, 2024
Truth Social launched in February 2022. This was around a year after Trump had been banned from popular platforms like Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter) in response to the protests of January 6. Trump, who has been reinstated to both platforms since then, has chosen to continue to post exclusively on Truth Social.
Investors will likely downplay the value of Truth Social, as it only has a fraction of users compared to other social media companies. Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter has somewhat undermined its core mission to bring free speech to the entire world.
Musk, in addition to renaming the platform X, has also ended the censorship that had previously controlled the company. Musk has restored most of the previously banned accounts causing anger amongst the liberal establishment. Other alt-tech social media sites such as GETTR Gab and Parler are now largely forgotten as users realize their largest audience is on X.
