Trump Media shares plunge 11% after company files to issue additional DJT stock

Rapidcreek@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 171 points –
Trump Media closes down more than 18% after filing plans to issue more DJT stock
cnbc.com
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Here's the thing. People investing in this aren't entirely as dumb as you think. Mostly, but not entirely.

Everybody knows by now that this stock and this company literally isn't worth the paper it's printed on. The entire company is built around the whims of one man who could drop dead of a heart attack at any given moment, and he is literally the only reason the company has any value at all, no matter how miniscule it is.

But....

If he wins the Presidency, and there's a very real chance he will, then Truth Social will basically become the communications arm of the White House. This will draw tons of new users to the site, will cause advertisers to start advertising there, and will lead to millions of views per tweet or whatever he calls them. (I refuse to call them truths). Shares of the stock will absolutely skyrocket and these people will make serious bank.

This is what they're betting on. They are not investing in this stock because they have any faith in the company, the man, or the product. They are just placing a very large bet that Trump will win in November. If they're right, they're set for life. If they're wrong, they lose everything. They're basically all in. That's what this is all about.

Twitter is showing me that no matter how big and relevant a network is the big companies care more about not advertising next to Nazis than about advertising in a popular space.

I'm hopeful that it'll stay that way and the only ones advertising there will be those that are already supporting trump and that it'll only cost them money by people boycotting their products.

Even if he wins the presidency he's for sure not winning the popular vote and also for sure not winning the reasons most interesting for advertisers. Not sure that bet is going to hold up well in the end

To add to this, Truth Social is mainly political, it's not a space companies find interesting to advertise. Women purchase things for the house so they control the purse strings of a household, the next major purchases are teens. These are the realms of TikTok and Youtube shorts. Older demographics don't buy much, are stuck in their habits.

Regardless of their personal opinions, the fact of the matter is that this would still be, for all intents and purposes, the "offical" communications arm of the President of the United States. That commands a certain amount of attention regardless of who that is. Millions of people will be paying attention to what goes on there because his posts are suddenly official communications. Advertisers will advertise there, not because of support for the man, but because it's essentially a very large captive audience.

Twitter also has a very large captive audience - yet their advertisers are running away

There's a difference between a social media network and a social media network that is also the official communications channel of the President of the United States. If you don't think that will absolutely drive users, viewers, and advertisers (including those who just want to curry favor with Trump), you're delusional. Trump will demand that the entire GOP move their accounts over to Truth Social (Because he will make more money), and the vast majority of the GOP absolutely will march in lockstep because they're spineless cowards.

Even if Trump does win, posts are very easy to screenshot and share on other platforms. There isn’t a big incentive to get it from truth social instead of waiting for people to share his ramblings all over the news and their preferred social platforms. I never had a Twitter account either, but I saw Trump’s ridiculous tweets shared around all the time. Most people won’t need to go there to see what he is up to. He will get a bump, but not enough to make it the new Twitter.

I never said it would be the next Twitter, but it would become significantly larger than it is now, actually start generating revenue, and funnel a bunch of money Trump's way.

Which is great because now the US can finally have the state run 24-hour propaganda arm the fascists and dictators love.

We all know that the orange scrotum would pressure the simping GOP to pass a law making Truth Social the only place for all gov't communication for all parties.

We already know he made the Secret Service stay at Mar-a-Lardo and upcharged the federal gov't for the rooms. Anything to funnel US taxpayer money into his pockets

I can only hope the stories of people financing their homes and using retirement investments for this stock are not true.

It's sad they are so easily manipulated by a conman...

If I issue 1 zillion stocks, I'll be the richest person on earth!

if you have suckers out there buying them just because your name is on the piece of paper.. suckers who are also too proud and stupid to cut their losses..

When it first started, it was in the $12 range.

Sure, this massive drop is still giving his worthless stock a profit.

Wake me up when it sinks back down there and drops completely.

It's not really too far above that now. As of this post, it's at $27.88. I don't imagine it'll take too much more of Trump's fuckery to push it all the way back down.

They're also likely being majorly fucky worthwith the books (hence why they loopholed the IPO reviews). Very curious to see what their earnings statement says.

Question: why did this stock have some trading history in the past five years, if it started trading this year?

Digital World Acquisition Corp was a SPAC that was traded on the NASDAQ already. It merged with Trump Media and Technology Group to create a new stock ticker. So the trading history is mostly DWAC until it ceased to exist when it was merged with TMTG.

Bet you'll never guess when that happened.

Lol, did the holders of DWAC stock get to keep them? Or were those diluted? I guess what I wonder is, if I held DWAC stock, then the merge happened, then the stock price increased, could have I sold this stock at its peak or not?

Investors holding DWAC pre-merger would’ve been able to sell it off as DJT as soon as the merger was complete. Trump can’t sell his shares for six months after the merger without permission from his company’s board.

Instead of buying regular shares of DWAC, some people invested in warrants which can be turned into ordinary shares in the future at a price of $11.50/warrant. Those can’t be exercised until 30 days after the merger and are trading under the ticker DJTWW. DWACW (now DJTWW) was trading at $20 just before the merger, so people who bought at that price essentially locked in a future price of $31.50/share of DJT once the added cost of exercising the warrants is factored in. That could’ve been a nice windfall if DJT maintained its spike of $70 after the merger, but it isn’t much of a deal at today’s closing price of $26.61 and they still have about ten more days to go until they can trade in their warrants. Most of the time the warrants traded at a much lower price than $20, however. Whoever was selling when they were at $20 probably made a decent profit.