(Photo : Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images)
Shares of former President Donald Trump's media company have doubled since April.
Shares in Donald Trump's media company have more than doubled since hitting its lowest point last month and have added billions of dollars to the former president's net worth, according to a report.
Trump Media & Technology Group's shares surged 10 percent on Monday to $54.39, closing at a level not seen since late March, Forbes reported.
The jump added $636 million to the former president's net worth, Forbes reported.
As of Thursday, the company's market cap was $7.4 billion, the report said.
Trump, who owned 114.8 million shares in Trump Media, the parent company of Truth Social, is now worth $8.2 billion, Forbes estimates.
The company's share prices have been in a wild ride since it debuted on Nasdaq on March 26 - ranging from more than $70 a share to under $24, USA Today reported,
"Expect the unexpected," Jay Ritter, a finance scholar at the University of Florida, told the outlet.
He predicted its volatile nature will continue and will likely fall to about $2 a share.
"Whether it takes six months to get there or three years to get there, nobody knows for sure," he said.
KEY BACKGROUND
Trump Media completed its merger with the Digital World Acquisition Corp in late March, allowing the company to go public and providing Trump with a multibillion dollar windfall as he faced mounting legal bills and was ordered to pay more than $550 million in three civil judgments. However, Trump and other company executives are restricted from selling their shares for about four more months due to a lockup period, according to a filing. The combined company's stock has proved volatile since going public, reaching a high of $66.22 not long after its debut and a low of $22.84 just three weeks later. The company has sought to protect itself against short sellers-investors who purchase shares in a stock and profit off slumps-informing Trump Media shareholders of how to request their brokerages to remove their company shares from being used in short selling trades. Trump Media's shareholder base is mainly made up of Trump himself and retail investors.
