Trump Media fell 14% yesterday, part of an ongoing slide that's seen the company lose a third of its stock price in days and wiping out the gains of investors who led it to a spectacular valuation just weeks ago. Unreal from the outset—it amounts to Truth Social, an off-the-shelf Twitter clone for Trump fans with no revenue or prospects for user growth—at one point Trump Media had a market cap of $8bn. Not any more.
TMTG's stock, majority-owned by former President Donald Trump, is down more than 70% from the all-time high it set on March 26, the day after it merged with a blank-check acquisition company to go public. Although the company is still worth billions of dollars, it is struggling to make money and desperate for cash. Experts have warned investors to be careful if they choose to trade the stock, because the company doesn't have the fundamentals to back up its sky-high valuation.
Filing to issue more stock and to lubricate Trump's ability to cash out later this year is what started the latest rout, but yesterday's decline was made worse by the company's unexpected announcement that it would produce streaming media.
Truth Social will stream live TV, the company said, including news, religious channels, "family-friendly content," as well as "other content that has been canceled, is at risk of cancellation, or is being suppressed on other platforms and services. Trump Media said that much like Truth Social itself, the streaming platform will be "independent of Big Tech."
Trump Media stock ended Tuesday down by 14%, closing out the trading day at $22.84 per share. That brings the company's market capitalization to $3.12 billion — cutting its market valuation by more than half since its first-trading-week highs.
Consider that even if it ends up a penny stock by the time he can sell, Trump is still set to make tens of millions of dollars dumping his equity in the company—and there's still a strong possibility he'll become, apparently for the first time, a true liquid billionaire.
Previously: Trump Media Stock plummets: a joyous financial disaster
