In This Story
Trump Media & Technology Group stock hit a fresh post-merger low Wednesday, as its shares dipped below $20 for the first time since going public.
Shares of Trump Media, the company behind former President Donald Trump’s social media network Truth Social, fell roughly 6%, bottoming out at $19.38 per share. In the five months since its debut on the Nasdaq under the ticker DJT, the company has seen its market value plunge 66%.
Trump Media’s market capitalization came out to $3.91 billion as of Wednesday afternoon.
This comes just weeks before Trump will get the green light to offload his 114.75 million shares of Trump Media, or about 60% of the company’s outstanding stock. The Republican presidential hopeful stands to make upwards of $2 billion from the stock sale — although the value of those returns depends on the share price.
The six-month lockup period on his and other insiders’ shares is set to end in late September.
Read more: Trump Media stock will ‘go to zero’ if Donald Trump loses the election, expert says
Trump Media did not pursue a traditional initial public offering, but instead went public on March 26 after completing its merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.
Since then, its stock has been especially volatile, fluctuating wildly from day to day and adding — or cutting — billions from the company’s market value. Trump Media stock has been labeled a “meme stock,” like GameStop, AMC, and Reddit, because of the way its shares are traded largely on sentiment rather than the company’s actual operating results or prospects.
At the height of the hype just after its debut, Trump Media had a market value of roughly $8 billion — almost double what it is today.
Much of Trump Media’s market success has been dependent on the company’s connection to the former president. The company itself has said in regulatory filings that its “success depends in part on the popularity of its brand and the reputation and popularity of” Trump, and that “adverse reactions to publicity relating to [Trump], or the loss of his services, could adversely affect TMTG’s revenues and results of operations.”
Its shares spiked following his debate performance against President Biden in June, and after last month’s assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. Despite some unexplained spikes, however, the company’s stock has trended downward in recent weeks.