(AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez, File)
Former President Donald Trump received a much-needed financial boost last week when Truth Social, the social media company he founded after being kicked off of Twitter, went public.
Trump holds upwards of 78 million shares in the firm, officially dubbed Trump Media & Technology Group, that are now worth billions of dollars after the initial round of sales of company stock.
But according to the company’s SEC filings, the fundamentals do not come remotely close to justifying the stock price. In fact, it brought in just $4.1 million in revenue in 2023 and suffered a net loss of over $58 million. A majority of those losses are attributable to its debt, although its operating costs were still approximately four times higher than its revenue stream.
While the shares could provide the former president with a cash infusion as he continues to struggle to pay various legal fees and penalties resulting from his various civil and criminal trials, there are questions about just how valuable they will ultimately prove to be to him.
Trump is not allowed to sell his shares for six months, and some analysts have predicted that a Trump-led sell-off will cause the stock price to plummet.
Former New York Assistant Attorney General Adam Pollock has argued that the company is “essentially worthless” and Fox Business host Stuart Varney predicted that the stock would crash if it looks like Trump is going to lose his bid to retake the White House.
“I think it’s almost like a meme stock, and that’s the way it’ll play out,” said Varney. “It’s a bet on whether Trump wins or loses in November of this year. If he loses, I think the stock goes way down. If he wins or looks like he’s going to win, I think the stock does well because then Truth Social will do well.”
Trump has also hawked trading cards, sneakers, and even Bibles in an effort to ameliorate his financial woes.
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