Former President Donald Trump’s net worth has skyrocketed to about $7.5 billion since Trump Media, the parent company for his social network Truth Social, went public earlier this week.
The question for Trump’s presidential bid — and his various legal troubles — is whether he can actually cash in on those gains.
His 2024 campaign and the Save America political action committee supporting it have posted dismal fundraising numbers in recent months. Trump is also facing a fast-approaching deadline to post a $175 million civil fraud bond in the New York case involving his inflation of the value of his real estate holdings.
Trump Media’s initial public offering could theoretically help solve these problems: Trump’s stake in the company is worth about $4.8 billion at its current stock price, according to Barron’s.
Traded under the ticker symbol “DJT,” the company’s stock price surged to $77.27 on Tuesday, coming down to a still impressive $61.96 by the time markets closed Thursday. Its price is well above that of Reddit, a nearly 20-year-old social media company that had a much larger user base (hundreds of millions of monthly active users vs a paltry one million for Truth Social) and more sophisticated revenue model when its stock went public last week.
Whether that windfall proves to be Trump’s saving grace, however, depends on how long the good times keep rolling for DJT — and if Trump can sell his shares without triggering a downward spiral.
Trump’s financial troubles, explained
Trump may now be one of the world’s 500 richest people, as Bloomberg declared after Trump Media started trading. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he has a lot of cash to spare.
In February, his official campaign fund and the Save America PAC raised a total of $15.9 million and ended the month with over $37 million on hand. That’s far behind President Joe Biden’s campaign, which raised $26 million on Thursday night alone at an event in New York with…
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