By Paul R. La Monica and Mackenzie Tatananni
Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group dropped Wednesday after the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow a trust headed by President Donald Trump to eventually sell around $2.3 billion in stock. But there are no current plans to do so, the company noted.
Shares of the Truth Social owner fell 6.4% to about $19 in morning trading. It was down as much as 9% earlier in the day.
Trump Media filed a Form S-3 registration statement with the SEC on Wednesday that allows shareholders to periodically sell stock but doesn't guarantee that the shares actually will be sold.
"These shares were already registered last June on an S-1 form, and today TMTG submitted a routine filing that re-registers them on an S-3 form in order to keep the Company's filings effective. In fact, there currently is no open window for any affiliate to sell shares," Trump Media said.
The new form mentions 114,750,000 shares held by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. That works out to a 52.2% stake in Trump Media. Of those shares, 78,750,000 are common stock, while the remainder are so-called earnout shares issued to Trump HIMSELF OR THE TRUST? on April 26, 2024. The filing noted that the president is the trust's sole beneficiary. The trust is controlled by the president's son, Donald Trump Jr.
The filing comes ahead of what Trump is calling " Liberation Day." Later today, the president is expected to announce a series of tariffs that some fear will ignite a global trade war. Trump Media's stock hasn't been immune from these pressures. Shares had fallen about 50% since Trump's inauguration before Wednesday's news.
Trump Media also announced earlier this week that it had made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange's new NYSE Texas exchange. It was the first company to list there. The company recently announced a partnership with Crypto.com to launch exchange-traded funds for Bitcoin and other crypto assets as well.
DJT stock has been volatile since its Wall Street debut in March 2024 following its merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company or blank-check firm. The stock is now trading about 75% below the peak of just under $80 that it hit shortly after the merger was completed.
Write to Paul R. La Monica at paul.lamonica@barrons.com and Mackenzie Tatananni at mackenzie.tatananni@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
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April 02, 2025 11:16 ET (15:16 GMT)
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