After making its stock market debut on Wall Street last week, shares in the parent company of former President Donald Trump's social media platform Truth Social plunged yesterday after the company disclosed massive losses in 2023.
Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (DJT) unveiled in filings Monday that it lost about $58.2 million last year, with revenue of just $4.1 million. The disclosure drove the company's stock price down by 21% before closing Monday at just over $48 per share.
Judge expands gag order after Trump's posts target family members
Judge Juan M. Merchan said Trump's social media attacks warranted expanding the order to Merchan's family.
Trump's company started trading on the Nasdaq for the first time on March 26 after a merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp. was approved earlier this month allowing the company to go public. In its first day of trading, Trump Media had surpassed $79 per share at one point but has since cooled, meaning many early investors have already incurred heavy losses.
The former president holds some 79 million shares in the newly combined company, giving him a 60% majority ownership. However, it doesn't appear he will be able to cash out on gains anytime soon to help pay his New York civil fraud judgment or any legal bills surrounding his other pending civil and criminal cases.
According to the Wall Street Journal, people involved in high-stakes deals like the one that brought Truth Social to the public market are typically prohibited from buying or borrowing against their shares for at least six months.
