The owner of Truth Social entered the stock market Tuesday as DJT, President Trump’s initials.

The company’s stock price soared more than 35% on Monday as it assumed the stake held by merger partner Digital World Acquisition. On Friday, shareholders approved the merger, which was first announced in 2021.

Trump owns 60% of Trump Media, or about 78 million shares, valued at more than $3.9 billion at Monday’s closing price. Monday’s frenzied trading made the company one of President Trump’s largest assets in his net worth, according to Bloomberg, making it the first time a president has held a It was ranked on that list. 500 richest people.

But a common deal clause known as a lockup prevents Trump from selling or using his stock as collateral for six months. Lockups are intended to give investors confidence that major shareholders will not immediately cash out if a deal goes through. .

Trump Media’s valuation of about $6.7 billion also contradicts the company’s performance. The company earned about $3.4 million in revenue and lost $49 million in the first nine months of 2023, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For comparison, discussion board platform Reddit, which went public last week, is valued at more than $9.5 billion, has 73 million daily unique visitors, and generated more than $800 million in revenue last year.

Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes, a former Republican congressman from California, said in a statement Monday that the company is “taking back the Internet from Big Tech censorship” and “joining the growing army of speech suppressors.” I will take a stand,” he said.

The merger will free up more than $300 million that Digital World raised from investors in 2021 for Trump Media, which the company will use to support advertising on Truth Social, its main source of revenue. The company says it will use the money to expand its online infrastructure.

But the company is much smaller than its social media peers, which also sell advertising. Trump, Truth Social’s most popular user, currently has 6.7 million followers. Digital World said in its prospectus last month that the platform has received 8.9 million sign-ups since its launch in 2022.

Incidentally, Company X announced last year that the number of monthly active users exceeded 540 million. Meta’s new social network Threads announced in July that it had registered 100 million new users in five days.

Digital World said in its prospectus that Trump Media’s “adherence to traditional key performance indicators” (common industry measurements such as sign-ups and active users) could “divert focus” from business growth. He said he thought it was sexual.

Trump Media “believes that focusing on these KPIs may not be in the best interest of the public.” [Trump Media] or its shareholders,” the prospectus states.

The soaring value of Trump Media’s paper is far higher than Trump’s own valuation in April of last year, when the merger process was delayed. In his campaign’s financial disclosure filing that month, Mr. Trump said his stake in the company was worth between $5 million and $25 million.

Trump has not invested any money into the company, which was founded in early 2021 by Andy Litinsky, a former cast member of Trump’s TV show “The Apprentice,” and Wes Moss. The men are currently suing Trump Media, accusing it of diluting their company’s stock.

Trump Media will take over the stock ticker symbol of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, Trump’s last publicly traded company. The Post reported in 2016 that the company lost more than $1 billion during the Trump years and filed for bankruptcy in 2004.

According to the merger agreement, Trump can waive the six-month lock-up clause with approval from Trump Media’s board of directors. The board currently includes Nunes and Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., as well as Robert E. Lighthizer, Linda McMahon and several prominent Trump allies. . Kash Patel made the disclosure in an SEC filing.

But financial experts told the Washington Post that allowing Mr. Trump to raise money early could flood the market with money and push the company’s stock price lower.

In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, Chad Nedohin, one of Digital World’s investors, blamed Friday’s stock price drop on “massive market manipulation” and “fake news” reports about the lockup. said. Nedohin also claimed that Trump would never sell his company’s stock because “such an action would be terrible for him and would destroy the value of his own company.”

But President Trump could use the money to pay off some of the hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fines. A New York Court of Appeals panel on Monday ordered President Trump to post $175 million bail within 10 days to delay enforcement related to a $454 million civil fraud judgment that includes possible asset seizure. He said he needed to bring it in.

President Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday a “beautiful” message he said he received from a supporter, writing, “It’s ironic that Christ experienced his greatest persecution in the very week they were trying to steal your property. ” he said.