Trump Media falls to fresh stock-market low after presidential debate

Former President Donald Trump’s social media empire dropped to a fresh low in the US stock market, post his primetime presidential debate with Kamala Harris. As discussed in a report by The Guardian. The stock closed 10.47 per cent lower in the last trading session and has lost 4.41 per cent of its value since the start of this year

Brief history of Trump’s media empire

His company Trump Media & Technology Group Corporation (TMTG) is an American media and technology company headquartered in Sarasota, Florida. It is best known as the owner of Truth Social and for being primarily owned by former US President Donald Trump.

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Trump Media stocks initially dropped as much as 17 per cent on Wednesday

Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of the former President’s Truth Social platform, dropped by as much as 17 per cent as of Wednesday morning. They later pulled back, but still closed down 10.5 per cent. While TMTG is still valued at about $3 billion on the stock market, after an extraordinary rally earlier this year, it has endured a steep fall in recent months, retreating more than 75 per cent from its peak in March.

Trump has a majority stake in the firm but has so far been unable to sell his shares. This is about to change. The first day that the former president can begin selling shares if he chooses to do so, is 19 September. He owns nearly 115 million shares of the company, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

TMTG runs the social media platform Truth Social, which Trump created after he was banned from Twitter, now X, and Facebook after the January 6 Capitol riot. Based in Sarasota, Florida, the company has been losing money and struggling to raise revenue. It lost nearly $58.2 million last year while generating only $4.1 million in revenue, according to regulatory filings.

While TMTG has not disclosed the size of its user base, the research firm Similarweb estimated that in March it had 7.7m visits – while X, formerly Twitter, had 6.1bn. That same month, however, TMTG was valued at almost $10bn on the stock market.

Shares of TMTG have been considered a meme stock by some market experts, which is a nickname given to stocks that get caught up in buzz online and shoot way beyond what traditional analysis says they’re worth. It is a term that is generally assigned to stocks that don’t have strong fundamentals. The stock has fluctuated for the past several months, with trading largely driven by individual investors who are typically considered less sophisticated than day traders.