Trump Took His Social Media Company $DTJ Public and Instantly Made $4 Billion
It wasn't all that long ago in the grand scheme of things, when everyone in America who does a Donald J. Trump impression (which is unofficially 52% of all your friends and relatives, 77% of all standups and sketch comics, and 100% of impressionists) was doing a riff on his speech where he said he's going to win so much the people will get tired of so much winning.
And well they should have. It was a ridiculous line that probably sounded a lot better in his head, but became an instant punchline the minute he said it. His signature brand of narcissism and swagger summed up in just a few words that only got funnier every time he repeated it. Words that were crying out to be made fun of. That got thrown back in his face a few weeks ago when he lost a civil judgement against him, despite the best efforts of his very capable attorney Alina Habba, Esq:
That was going to cost him an estimated $464 million. And ever since it was handed down and the state of New York began threatening to seize his assets such as Trump Tower to pay it, Trump's most vocal enemies have been relentlessly dunking on him all across the landscape of cable news and the internet. And all the talk about winning just seemed like hubris that was coming back to bite him in his once powerful ass.
But then a few things happened. First, he shook hands with Dave Portnoy:
And whether it was a cause-and-effect thing or mere coincidence is up to you. But ever since that moment Trump has been on a winning streak unlike anyone in America has seen since John Wooden's UCLA Bruins. First, an appeals court reduced his penalty to almost 1/3 of what it originally was. When asked, Trump had one word for how he intends to pay it. And it's not letting New York become the landlord of his mega-properties:
Not that $175 million is chump change. That's still a sizable nut for anyone to owe their state government. At least it was for Trump. Until today. Until the start of the business day Tuesday. When he took Truth Social public. And blew the doors off the Stock Exchange:
CNBC - The share price of Donad Trump’s social media company jumped by more than 50% minutes after it began public trading under the ticker DJT on Tuesday morning.
Trading in Trump Media & Technology Group was briefly halted amid the rise due to volatility before it resumed around 9:40 a.m. ET More than 6.5 million shares in Trump Media had changed hands by 9:50 a.m.. …
Trump Media’s merger with the shell company Digital World Acquisition Corp. was completed Monday, allowing it to become publicly traded, it added almost $4 billion in paper profits to Donald Trump’s net worth.
Trump Media’s market valuation could be $6 billion at Tuesday’s opening bell, despite the company reporting less than $3.5 million — that’s million, not billion — in revenue over the first three quarters of 2023.
On its last day of trading Monday under the DWAC ticker, the company’s shares soared more than 35% after a New York appeals court decreased from $454 million to $175 million the amount of a bond Trump would have to post to pause collection on a business fraud judgment while he appeals the case.
The company’s closing price Monday was just under $50 per share.
Yeah, suddenly that $175 million sounds like an amount that will be falling out of his pockets and down between the sofa cushions. The kind of fine you half expect him to pay walking into the Department of Revenue carrying big fans of bills and a tuxedo with "$" all over it like the Million Dollar Man. Or in coins, like those stories that come up once in a while were some crackpot loner in a small down pays his property tax in a pickup truck filled with pennies, just to be a pain in the ass. In fact, he probably made double that 175 million in the time it took you to read this paragraph.
And according to the internet - DISCLAIMER: DO NOT GET YOUR FINANCIAL ADVICE FROM THE INTERNET. Past performance is not indicative of future results, and all that - Trump is poised to make a lot more than the $4 billion he made this morning:
Which is probably meant to be snark. As we all should've learned by now, Twitter does a terrible job of expressing satire. The joke always seems to get lost somehow. And it's high time Elon Musk develop a font just to make it clear you're being sarcastic. But nevertheless, there are people speculating that by the end of the week, Trump might add as much as $6 billion to his net worth. Just for taking a social media platform that practically no one is on and which only had $3.5 million in total revenue last year public.
And unless the price per share of $DJT goes tits up in a hurry, it's going to be harder for anyone to crack the jokes about his "winning" talk.
Again, I'm not here to give financial advice. But if you've got some disposable assets on hand and are looking to maximize their earning potential, you could do a lot worse than to go to an MMA tournament and press the flesh with Dave Portnoy. Diamond hands, indeed.
A former President of the United States is going to UFC events, getting dragged into court, losing some cases, winning others, making billions, and currently leading in the polls. And the harder they come after him, the more his support goes up and the more money he makes. The Year of Our Lord 2024 is going to be an amazing time to be alive.