ANALYSIS – Trump lovers and haters are having quite the ride as Trump’s net worth seems to be on a rollercoaster.
The Wall Street debut of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) – whose flagship product is the social media platform “Truth Social” – boosted Donald Trump’s stock on paper, but the value of his shares has since plummeted. (RELATED: Truth Social Co-Founders Sue Donald Trump)
Will Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign help boost his worth again?
As I recently wrote about, Trump’s net worth soared to at least $6.4 billion – up nearly $4 billion – last week after investors approved his social media company’s merger with Digital World. Tuesday, March 27, was its first day as an independently traded public company.
This briefly made the former president one of the 450 richest people in the world.
Even though Trump Media, which trades under the ticker DJT (Trump’s initials) is losing money and generating scant revenue, Wall Street had valued the company at as much as $11 billion based on the stock’s closing price Friday, according to Renaissance Capital.
By Monday afternoon that valuation tumbled to about $8.8 billion.
It closed at $48.66 per share, a 26.5% drop from its $66.22. The plunge came after Trump Media unveiled its 2023 results for the first time, revealing full-year revenues of $4.1 million on a net loss of $58.2 million.
Trump’s company has said it expects to continue losing money for a while, and at least one expert says it’s likely worth far less than the stock market suggests.
Trump, who owns 78.5 million shares in Trump Media, about 57% of all shares, saw his stake in the social media business fall in value by $1.4 billion. At Monday afternoon’s prices, that stake is now worth approximately about $3.8 billion. (RELATED: Wall Street Journal Rips Into Biden for Now-Infamous Tweet)
Trump’s nearly 79 million shares of Trump Media & Technology Group are now – by far – his largest asset, worth nearly twice as much as all his real estate, resort and cash holdings combined.
Meanwhile, CNN reported: “The problem for Trump Media is its main product — Truth Social — is shrinking.” It added “Monthly active US users on iOS and Android plunged in February to 494,000, down 51% year-over-year.”
“By comparison,” CNN noted, “X has 75 million monthly active US users. Even Threads has more than 10 times as many users as Truth Social.”
CNN continued:
While Trump Media made just $4.1 million in revenue in 2023, rival X (formerly known as Twitter) raked in more than 100 times that much — $665 million — in 2013, ahead of its initial public offering in November 2013. Twitter also generated just over $5 billion in revenue in the final year before it was taken private by Elon Musk.
In fact, Truth Social’s financials are comparable to that of The Messenger, the upstart digital news outlet that imploded earlier this year. Citing an investor deck, CNBC reported in January that The Messenger posted 2023 revenue of $3.8 million and a net loss of $43 million.
But this year may decide the future of Trump’s net worth, at least related to his media company. Matthew Kennedy, senior IPO strategist at Renaissance Capital said, according to CNN:
2024 is the make-or-break year for this company. For TMTG the thing that matters now is getting in front of the cash cannon that is the 2024 presidential election. And the company does have one notable advantage. Trump-backed super PACs have raised millions. Where do you think they’ll spend their digital ad buckets?
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
