Trump Media stock drops 5% after quarterly loss and GOP nominee's return to X

Original Article:

Source: Link

Shares in Trump Media and Technology Group fell slightly more than 5% on Monday after the company reported scant revenues and a net loss in its first full quarter as a public company. Meanwhile, Donald Trump returned to X early Monday in advance of his interview with X owner Elon Musk later in the day, raising some doubt about whether the former president would continue favoring Truth Social, the social media platform owned by Trump Media. In a fundraising email late in Monday's trading session, however, the Trump campaign said he's "back on X for a short time." Shares in Trump Media have been subject to significant volatility since it began trading in late March thanks in part to competing bets from Wall Street traders about how much the stock would fall. But the stock has lost half its value since mid-May, and has fallen more than 40% following a brief surge in the wake of the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump, the Republican nominee for president. That has equated to billions in paper losses for Trump Media's largest shareholder: the former president himself. Still, the company's market value was $4.72 billion as of Monday's close. With rare exceptions, Trump has almost exclusively posted to Truth Social since the platform came into being in February 2022. But in its initial public offering, the company officially warned that if Trump stopped posting to Truth Social, investors would be materially harmed. While Trump is contractually obligated to post on Truth Social before he does so on any other platform, the rule does not apply to posts related to his campaign and politics. Trump, who was once a prolific tweeter, last posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, in August 2023. “They want to silence me because I will never let them silence you,” Mr. Trump said in a campaign video posted to his account Monday, which was reinstated by Musk in 2022 after Twitter's former ownership banned it in the wake of the January 6, 2021 riot. “They’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you.” In its quarterly report, released late Friday, Trump Media addressed the launch of its streaming service, Truth+, this month. It also said it was exploring “numerous other possibilities for growth,” including mergers and acquisitions. It added it was debt free and had $344 million in cash and cash equivalents. “From the beginning, it was our intention to make Truth Social an impenetrable beachhead of free speech, and by taking extraordinary steps to minimize our reliance on Big Tech, that is exactly what we are doing,” CEO Devin Nunes, the former California Congressman, said in the quarterly report.