I’m not sure if this goes in P&E, but probably election strategy goes into it, so I’ll try it here.
Trump is apparently free to sell his stake in Truth Social starting around September 25, but will he? On the pro side, It’s a big chunk of money – $2.5 billion or so at current prices, (That’s naive though. Once he starts selling, the price is going to drop quickly.)
On the con side, if he sells out as soon as he can it may appear like a betrayal to his supporters who are propping up the price, and they would have a hard time not recognizing that he’s been conning them this whole time. OK, they’ve got a lot of practice not recognizing this, but when they see their life savings officially become worthless, that’s could make it suddenly real for a bunch of them. Not that Trump cares about that per se, but I believe – and believe he believes – that if he’s not president then he will be in jail, so he can’t really afford to alienate his voters 5 weeks before the election.
To make things more confusing, there are other big shareholders, like Devin Nunes and I think Trump’s children too. They have to be aware that the company is not worth anything like its $4 billion valuation and whoever sells out first sells highest. It could be a really interesting show.
I don’t believe Trump personally put any money into Truth Social, so he’s just going to dump as much of the stock as he can for the highest price possible as soon as possible. Trump will then blame other people when he tanks the price. I suppose there’s a small possibility Trump might think more strategically and hold on to shares until he’s elected but I have my doubts.
Can he sell all at once? This isn’t something I really know about, but my family has owned private stock, and they had limits on how much you could sell without approval. If he can sell all at once, fuck yeah, he’ll sell it all and flip double-birds to all the losers and suckers that either actually bought in or didn’t sell before he did.
That’s interesting. The article mentions the 6 month lockout period, but doesn’t say why some of the execs have been able to sell anyway. It’s disappointing in a way. It would be more fun if there was a single day where the bell rang and it was a sudden free-for-all. Kind of like Trading Places where everyone is the Dukes.
Still, $1.9 million of a $4.3 billion valuation isn’t exactly “whopping”. Maybe they can just get around the lockout for a small number of shares. Or maybe they’ll just keep selling out bit by bit while Trump can only grit his teeth and watch them.
Well, it’s already been pointed out that some of the big investors have started selling off, and I expect more to come as the value drops.
As for Trump, I’m of multiple minds: he loves him some money, and probably is already enraged at the amount he’s “lost” of the over-evaluated sum anyway.
I’m torn between two main scenarios (with possible compromises between the two in the middle):
Sells of most of the stock while claiming it’s to pay for his “self-funded” campaign and to “fight” the unlawful legal claims against him that’s forcing him to do so, and use that as an excuse to grift MORE, explain that he isn’t betraying all the little investors he’s robbing, and then offer to sell the remaining share to someone like (but probably not) Musk, who can pony up a large amount of immediate cash (above and beyond the current valuation?) with promises of a grateful president-for-life in the future.
Scared of the whole “looking like a loser” thing, hold on to most/all of it, betting that he will indeed win the election (a sadly far from zero probability option) at which it will likely rebound, and he can sell off then or continue to use it to launder money from “investors”.
Bolding added. I think you misspelled “speculator” aka “marks”.
DJT daily turnover value for the past month is less than USD100m/day. Even though Trump’s “worth” sounds like a lot at $2.5b, it’s pennies given NASDAQ alone trades about $250b/day. To say it a different way, it would take Trump to be the only seller at the current price 25 trading days to liquidate.
An extremely likely scenario: As soon as it looks like the Donald is selling anything, the speculators will flood the exits to take in profit/avoid being complete patsies. The $100m/day turnover value will plummet (buyers at any price will disappear), and that’s before the MAGA faithful decide to pile on before losing 100%. And it will become the penny stock that the actual business value justifies.
He’ll sell immediately after the November election. That’s my projection. IMHO, if he sells before the election, the faithful will get enraged and punish him for it by not voting for him.
I think the TMTG board of directors has the power to change the lockup period. Some of the board members are Trump Jr, Nunes, Linda McMahon and Kash Patel. So, we’re talking about four people who very much aren’t relatives nor lick-spittle sycophants of Donald Trump and who would absolutely, positively, never look to enrich themselves or Donald Trump at the expense of others. Ever.
Now, I don’t know if the board actually altered the lockup period or if maybe they did so just for Phillip and Nunes or what exactly. I would have thought they’d have to announce something like that ahead of time in some filing, but since no one is talking about it, I guess not.
He just needs to market it properly. “Donald Trump is offering you a chance to own one of his own, personal, stocks in a $4 billion valued company! Act now to take advantage of this limited time opportunity to share in the wealth Donald Trump has created for you!”
Can he set up a website to sell his own stocks outside the regular stock market? I could see him getting a better price that way, because “Trump himself owned this stock!” as compared to all the other losers trying to sell on the open market.
He and others who are “employees” of said enterprise need to make a living somehow, since their salary is probably low-ball and the likelihood of getting stiffed a paycheck or two is pretty high in this case.
IMHO Trump will do whatever benefits Trump the most and the soonest. If “speculators” end-up with a palmful of turds because they waited too long to get out, well, that’s on them. And as mentioned, Trump will assign blame for these poor souls’ misfortune to Harris and Walz. No matter there is no connection at all, the damn fool MAGA rubes will accept that anyway. Easy-peasy!
That’s who I was picturing. People who buy his shit just because it’s his shit, and they think that makes it a good investment. The sort of people who still believe he’s a genius businessman.
Yeah, I grant that many if not most of the larger shareholders are doing it their own grift of the grift or as a way to obfuscate donations-in-all-but name to Trump, but was sticking to a more neutral set of terminology in terms of WHY said parties weren’t up in arms about the stock price, the liquidations, and the unspeakably underperformance of the actual “business” by any measurable metric.
My guess is he sells in multiple small chunks, like 5-10% of his shares every couple weeks, and then dumps the rest after the election.
With each sale, the price will drop, he’ll complain about how the Dems are manipulating the stock price, and all good patriots must do their part to support him. This will give the stock a little bump (or at least stop the bleeding), and once it’s stabilized, sell some more.
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