Former president Donald Trump is hellbent on “Making America Great Again” — but if his dying Truth Social startup is anything to go by, he’s the one that needs saving.
Case in point, shares of Trump Media & Technology Group — the company behind the president’s would-be competitor to Twitter, Truth Social — have been plummeting for almost any time frame you look at, including a staggering 41 percent decline in the past month alone.
Remember, this is the same guy who promised he’d “fix” Obamacare and then didn’t, and that he was going to build a wall on the Southern border that Mexico would pay for, which also didn’t happen.
So if you find yourself considering Trump’s outsized campaign promises this time around — like that he’ll save America from an imagined crime wave, even though crime is actually falling — just remember that he’s demonstrably failing to run a startup right now, even while the rest of the market has been doing great.
Shares are down over 25 percent over the last five days alone, reaching historic lows. The value of the stock dropped below a pitiful $12 per share this morning for the first time since before October 2021, around the time it was announced that Trump Media would go public with the help of blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corp.
The scale of Trump Media’s floundering is astonishing. In a matter of months, Trump Media has more than wiped out any gains it had made since merging with a blank check acquisition company in March.
The precipitous drop has also eviscerated the value of Trump’s personal holdings. The former reality TV host holds almost 57 percent of the company’s outstanding shares, and while they’re still worth around $1.4 billion today, that’s a far cry from the heights they briefly reached after the company went public earlier this year.
Whether the company can turn the grim situation around is dubious. Truth Social has failed to attract new users and is quickly becoming a lonely echo chamber for the angrily shouting candidate.
Recent estimates suggest the platform has around five million active monthly users, a pitiful number that pales in comparison to even multi-hyphenate Elon Musk’s hate speech incubator X.
The failing startup has attempted to put on the appearance that it has big plans in the works, including the launch of a streaming service. But its catastrophic finances paint an ugly picture. Despite its multi-billion dollar market cap, the company has been burning through cash with reckless abandon, raking in a measly $4.1 million in revenue last year while losing a staggering $58 million over the same period.
Last week, University of Florida finance professor Jay Ritter told ABC News that even after hitting all-time lows, the company is still overvalued by 1,000 percent.
“It’s grossly overvalued,” Ritter told CNN earlier this month. “It’s hard to come up with a value of the company that is much more than the cash on the balance sheet.”
With shares in seemingly perpetual freefall, Trump’s get-rich-quick scheme is starting to look even less lucrative, especially now that insiders are free to cash out and abandon ship.
Several key executives have already offloaded millions of dollars worth of shares earlier this month, including the company’s CEO Devin Nunes, COO Andrew Northwall, and CFO Juhan Phillip.
Was this all a bid to raise some cash for Trump’s reelection campaign? As Reuters reports, Trump Media’s stock losses have outpaced a drop in betting-market odds that Trump would be reelected.
Meanwhile, the company remains adamant that it’s a viable business that will rebound from several catastrophic months of trading.
“With further innovations planned soon, TMTG is optimistic about our growth strategy,” a statement received by CNBC reads.
More on TMTG: As Truth Social Collapse Continues, Finance Professor Says Its Stock Is Still 1,000 Percent Overvalued
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