President-elect Donald Trump has made the decision to move almost his entire stake in TruthSocial to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust.
The news came in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Thursday, Fox News reported.
Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) is the parent company of Truth Social, and it has seen a rise in popularity during the election season as traders speculated on the chance that the Republican would regain the presidency.
“Trump has maintained up to 57% ownership of the company. In the lead up to the election, his stake was worth almost $4 billion,” the report said.
CREW Vice President for Communications Jordan Libowitz claimed that there were still ethical issues involved, however.
“Yes, he put it in a trust, but [he] basically did nothing to assuage any ethical fears,” he said to Politico. “This is like a head nod in the direction of ethics without taking an actual ethical step.”
Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition team, said that the president-elect “removed himself from his multi-billion-dollar real estate empire to run for office and forewent his government salary, becoming the first President to actually lose net worth while serving in the White House.”
In April, it was reported that Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) ‘s stock market performance surpassed expectations. After its merger and public offering on the Nasdaq exchange, TMTG’s value soared nearly 25 percent.
TMTG, the parent company of Truth Social, began trading on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol DJT on March 26 after merging with Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC). Days later, shares of DWAC closed at $49.95. Later that week, The Epoch Times reported that TMTG was trading at $61.96, a rise of over 24 percent.
Former President Trump owns 78.75 million shares in TMTG, which were valued at $61.96 each at the time of the report. Thus, his stake in TMTG was worth approximately $4.87 billion, while the company’s total market capitalization was approximately $8.39 billion. As of March 30, President Trump’s net worth was estimated to be $7.48 billion, which put him at the 350th spot among the world’s 500 richest individuals.
The stock’s performance surpassed expectations, though analysts had anticipated a negative performance. Critics highlighted that TMTG has yet to turn a profit, reporting only $3.3 million in revenue between January and September 2023 and incurring losses of $49 million during the same period.
DWAC confirmed in a November filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that TMTG’s fate was closely linked to President Trump’s. In the filing, the company stated that if President Trump stopped dedicating “significant” time to Truth Social, TMTG’s business would be negatively impacted.
“TMTG’s success depends in part on the popularity of its brand and the reputation and popularity of its Chairman, President Donald J. Trump. The value of TMTG’s brand may diminish if the popularity of President Trump were to suffer,” it said.
“Adverse reactions to publicity relating to President Trump, or the loss of his services, could adversely affect TMTG’s revenues, results of operations, and its ability to maintain or generate a consumer base,” the filing added.
Truth Social received a major boost in March, as a surge of users flooded the platform to watch Trump respond in real time to President Joe Biden’s angry, divisive State of the Union Address.
Just the News reported that the platform was so overwhelmed that users experienced intermittent delays trying to access it at times.
“Trump uses his platform exclusively for his social commentary, making Truth Social the only social media site that hosts content from both Trump and Biden. Biden’s campaign recently opened up an account on Truth,” the outlet noted. “Trump essentially live-blogged his responses to Biden’s speech on the platform, starting with an opening salvo on Biden starting his speech late.”
