Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT), the parent company of former President Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, recovered from extended losses in early Friday trading to rise about 6% after Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records with the intent to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Trump is expected to appeal and will be sentenced on July 11, when he faces up to four years in prison on each charge.
Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media, went public on the Nasdaq after merging with special purpose company Digital World Acquisition Corporation.
The company’s shares have fallen about 10% since its IPO at the end of March.
Trump founded Truth Social, the platform now known as X, after he was banned from major social media apps like Facebook and Twitter following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Trump has since returned to those platforms, but the former president posted almost exclusively to his Truth Social account during his trial.
In an updated regulatory filing in April, Trump Media reported revenue of just over $4 million and a net loss of nearly $60 million for the fiscal year ended Dec. 31. The company warned that it expects losses to continue amid growing profitability issues.
The company released its first-quarter financial results in May, revealing a loss of $327 million, primarily due to costs related to the SPAC transaction. The company said more than 621,000 shareholders held shares in Trump Media as of April 29, noting that the “vast majority” of them were individual investors.
Trump owns about 60% of Truth Social. At Thursday’s closing price of about $52 a share, Trump Media’s market capitalization is about $7 billion, meaning the former president’s stake is worth about $4.2 billion. Shortly after the company went public, Trump’s stake was worth just over $4.5 billion.
In late April, the stock hit a milestone that could bring Trump an additional $1.2 billion in profits, but shareholders must abide by a six-month lockup period before they can sell or transfer their shares.
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