A sell-off of Trump Media picked up speed Thursday, with shares of former President Donald Trump’s company falling as much as 15% shortly after the opening bell.
The company behind the conservative social media app Truth Social, which trades on the Nasdaq as DJT, was hovering around $27 per share at the market’s open.
That price is more than 40% lower than it stood at the start of June, when Trump Media stock cost just over $49 a share.
The slide represents a massive on-paper loss for Trump, the majority owner of Trump Media.
Trump’s 114,750,000 shares in the company, worth more than $5.6 billion at the beginning of the month, would be worth around $3.2 billion based on Thursday’s stock moves.
Trump Media has been in a slump since May 30, when a New York jury convicted the former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
That downward trend accelerated Tuesday, dovetailing with a company deadline related to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s expected approval of its registration statement.
The stock fell nearly 10% in Tuesday’s session, on more than double the average trading volume. After the bell, Trump Media revealed that the SEC had declared its registration statement effective. The stock plunged more than 17% in post-market trading following the announcement.
The development authorizes early investors in Trump Media to exercise warrants they hold in the company, and it allows stockholders to publicly resell securities covered by the registration statement.
