Truth Social owner Trump Media & Technology Group announced Monday its merger with a publicly traded shell company has closed and trading will begin on the stock market on Tuesday.
The closing of the merger between Trump Media and Digital World Acquisition Corp. amounts to a multi-billion dollar windfall for former President Donald Trump, who is the chairman and dominant shareholder of the new company.
Trading of the new company under the ticker symbol “DJT” on the Nasdaq Stock Market is set to begin on Tuesday, the companies said.
News of the merger’s completion propelled shares of Digital World 21% higher on Monday. At current prices, Trump’s stake is valued at $3.5 billion. However, there are lock-up restrictions that would likely prevent Trump from selling or even borrowing against the value of that stock for months.
Devin Nunes, the CEO of the combined company, said in a statement that the business will move to “reclaim the Internet from Big Tech censors.”
“We will continue to fulfill our commitment to Americans to serve as a safe harbor for free expression and to stand up to the ever-growing army of speech suppressors,” Nunes said.
Shares of Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC), the shell company that now owns Truth Social, surged more than 20% on Monday. The stock is up over 170% over the past six months.
Experts warn that the market is overvaluing Trump Media given the company’s fundamentals.
Trump Media generated just $3.4 million of revenue through the first nine months of last year, according to SEC filings. The company posted a net loss of $49 million over that span.
Meanwhile, Truth Social’s user base is shrinking – more so than that of X, the company formerly known as Twitter.
The number of Truth Social’s US monthly active users on iOS and Android is down 39% year-over-year, according to Similarweb data shared with CNN earlier this month.
In anticipation of its merger with Trump Media, trading of DWAC shares had embodied the same kind of frenzy shown in Tupperware’s stock surge last July, or that of meme stocks AMC Entertainment and GameStop during the height of the pandemic. On Truth Social, there are more than 8,000 members in a chat group titled “The DWAC Shareholder Group,” where users discuss the shareholder vote to approve the merger and post memes and supportive messages.
Contributing: CNN’s Elisabeth Buchwald and Krystal Hur.
This story has been updated with additional context.
