Donald Trump's social media company has spiked by more than 50% only minutes after it began public trading under ticket DJT on Tuesday morning.
There was a brief pause in trading in the Trump Media & Technology Group amid heightening inconsistency before it resumed around roughly 9:30 a.m. CNBC reports more than 6.5 million shares in Trump Media had changed hands by 9:50 a.m.
The ticket debuted on the Nasdaq stock market nearly three decades after the former president used it to launch his publicly traded hotel and casino company to great commotion in 1995.
The merger of Trump Media with shell company Digital World Acquisition Corp. was finalized Monday, deeming it publicly traded and adding almost $4 billion in paper profits to Donald Trump's worth.
Trump Media's market valuation was around $2.5 billion despite reporting less than $3.5 million in revenue over the first three quarters of 2023.
Under the DWAC ticker and on its last day of trading, the company shares skyrocketed more than 35% after a New York appeals court decreased a $454 million to $175 million bond Trump would need to post to pause collection on a business fraud judgment while appealing the case.
The Trump Media deal with DWAC notes the highest-profile SPAC merger in history, mostly due to Trump's fame.
Should Trump be elected President in November, there is a possibility that the Truth Social app platform will considerably grow its market share enough to turn a profit for company shareholders.
Trump Media initially reported $49 million in losses for the first nine months of 2023, which is more than 14 times what it brought in revenue.
Trump previously made money for years following Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts going public with $14 per share in 1995, but not without making headlines.
The former president received more than $44 million in salary from the company for over a decade despite the firm continuously failing to turn a profit.
Trump Hotels ultimately filed for bankruptcy protection in November 2004 after losing $1 billion in the same year DJT was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.
"I don't think it's a failure, it's a success," Trump told NBC News in a 2004 interview after the bankruptcy filing listed $1.8 billion in debt and the stock was trading at about 50 cents per share.
"In this case, it was just something that worked better than other alternatives," he said of the bankruptcy.
"It's really just a technical thing, but it came together."
