Donald Trump didn’t just win the White House. He also grew richer Wednesday.
Truth Social owner Trump Media & Technology Group, Trump’s social media company, initially skyrocketed in value after CNN and other media outlets projected Trump won Tuesday’s presidential election.
Trump Media’s stock, which trades under the ticker symbol “DJT,” spiked 35% at the opening bell, translating to an astounding market value of about $9 billion.
Trump is the dominant shareholder in the conservative social media company, which has scant revenue and is losing money.
The president-elect’s 114.75 million shares were briefly worth about $5.3 billion based on those early gains, up from $3.9 billion when trading ended on Election Day. Of course, those are only paper gains and in practice it would be difficult for Trump to sell much of those shares without tanking the price.
And Trump Media’s share price gave back most of those early gains, recently trading about 8% higher. At these prices, Trump’s shares are worth about $4.2 billion on paper.
For months, Trump Media has served as a proxy for how traders think the election will end.
With Trump’s election odds falling, the company’s share price crashed to record low after record low in September.
But between September 23 and the end of October, Trump Media more than tripled in value — a stunning spike driven by bets that Trump would win the White House.
Matthew Tuttle, CEO of Tuttle Capital Management, told CNN he isn’t surprised to see Trump Media surge on Wednesday because the stock is the “only pure play” for traders to wager on a Trump win.
Tuttle added there is also probably a “massive short squeeze” caused by ill-timed short bets against the value of the stock in recent days. When a stock price starts to rise sharply, traders who bet against it are forced to buy back the stock to limit their losses. And that in turn causes the price to rise even further.
“A lot of people got fooled by the Iowa poll,” Tuttle said, referencing a poll last weekend that found Trump no longer in the lead in a state he won twice.
Still, it’s hard to make sense of Trump Media’s price tag. At about $9.5 billion, it is now valued at more than twice Macy’s and quadruple JetBlue.
That’s despite the fact that Trump Media makes very little revenue and Truth Social is a relatively small player in social media.
“The magnitude of his victory helps, but longer term they need to come up with some sort of strategy,” Tuttle said.
Trump Media disclosed Tuesday afternoon that its third-quarter revenue dipped 5% to just $1 million.
“Fundamentals don’t matter,” said Michael Block, chief operating officer and co-founder at AgentSmyth, an autonomous AI agent platform for investment ideas.
Block argued the market value reflects the value of a media company branded by “someone shaping up to be perhaps the most consequential person of the 21st century.”
“Forget about the past 40 years and the string of bankruptcies. Think about the here and now and what the brand is worth,” Block said.
