Truth Social Starts Trading Tuesday

Social network will start trading on Nasdaq with a market value of almost $6.8B
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Mar 26, 2024 3:00 AM CDT
Truth Social Starts Trading Tuesday
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump at Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, Fla., Sunday, March 24, 2024.   (AP Photo/Terry Renna)

Trump Media & Technology Group, whose flagship product is the former president's social networking site Truth Social, will begin trading on the Nasdaq stock market on Tuesday, the AP reports. Shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded shell company, approved a deal to merge with Trump's media business in a Friday vote. Shares of Digital World have been volatile. On Friday, the stock slumped 13.7% after the merger was approved. On Monday, it soared 35.2% to $49.95. Trump Media lost $49 million in the first nine months of last year, when it brought in just $3.4 million in revenue and had to pay $37.7 million in interest expenses. Donald Trump is set to own most of the combined company—or nearly 79 million shares, with a value of nearly $4 billion.

But Trump, who must pay a $175 million bond in his New York civil fraud case, won't 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 company insiders from selling newly issued shares for six months. Trump Media hasn't 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 roughly 5 million active mobile and web users in February. That's far below TikTok's more than 2 billion and Facebook's 3 billion—but still higher than other "alt-tech" rivals like Parler and Gettr. The common stock of Trump Media & Technology Group will trade under the ticker symbol "DJT." (Here are some questions would-be investors might ask themselves.)

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