March 25 (UPI) — Former President Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social is ready to begin trading Tuesday on the Nasdaq composite index under the symbol “DJT,” according to a federal filing.
The newly merged social media platform — formerly known as its shell company Digital World Acquisition Corp. — will be officially styled as Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing for the Sarasota-based company.
Now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for this year’s election, Trump will own at least 58% of the new company in a financial stake valued at over $3 billion. However, under the current terms of the contract that can be altered, the former president is unable to sell his shares for six months.
The new company will be lead by CEO Devin Nunes — a former Republican congressman who resigned his seat January 2022 to lead Trump’s new social media company at the time. Nunes said that the company’s management team “will continue to fulfill our commitment to Americans to serve as a safe harbor for free expression and to stand up to the ever-growing army of speech suppressor,” according to the SEC.
By comparison, Truth Social — which had about 494,000 mobile app users in February and 648,000 unique website visits — lags behind and has experienced a user decline versus other social media giants such as Meta or TikTok that boast billions of active users.
University of Florida business professor Jay Ritter told USA Today that he believes Trump’s stock valuation is unusual for a company that has shown so much financial loss since its 2021 launch.
Trump is being widely thought to use a stock buy-out to pay for part of his $464 million civil fraud judgment which was cut down Monday to $175 million.
“This is a stock where the market price is divorced from fundamental value,” said Ritter, who estimated that the stock’s value is only $2 and will likely remain volatile for some time.
