Apr 25, 2024 - Business

Trump gets handed a lot more Truth Social stock

Dan Primack

Photo illustration of Trump standing in front of a wall of patterned Truth Social logos — Photo illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios. Photo: Julie Bennett/Getty Images

Donald Trump this week received around 36 million more shares in the parent company of Truth Social, thanks to a generous earnout provision.

By the numbers: That gives him around 115 million total shares, or a 65% ownership stake, which were valued at $4.1 billion as of Wednesday's market close.

The new shares remain subject to a six-month lockup provision.

The latest: Trump Media & Technology Group shares have lost around half their value since the company completed its SPAC merger in late March, but easily remained above the levels Trump needed for his earnout.

Specifically, he received the full allotment because the stock price remained above $17.50 for 20 of 30 consecutive trading days.
He also could have received smaller earnouts had shares remained above $12.50 or $15 for the same amount of time during the company's first two years of trading.

Zoom in: It did briefly look like the former president might have to sweat it out, as shares dropped precipitously, but they've recently rebounded a bit.

Including yesterday, when they climbed after TMTG CEO Devin Nunes asked Congress to investigate the possibility of "naked" short selling.

The big picture: This company remains a meme stock, trading at farcical multiples, and must be sweating out next month's next quarterly earnings release. But so far its share prices have remained much more buoyant than have its financials, and Trump had reason to believe that could last through the lockup.

The bottom line: Trump may earn more from being kicked off Twitter than Elon Musk will ever earn from buying Twitter.

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Trump gets handed a lot more Truth Social stock

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