Donald Trump’s social media company Truth Social is soon going to begin trading publicly on Nasdaq. The former president who is believed to own the majority of the shares of the networking site will go public with the company after a merger between Digital World Acquisition Corp. and Trump Media & Technology Group go through. The merger will mean that Trump Media will now take the place of Digital World on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
Trump Media is valued at a stock price of nearly $50 and the market value is close to $6.8 billion. Trump Media is said to be hoping that Digital World’s investors, who are trying to support Trump, will buy stocks. Experts have said the anticipation shown by shareholders so far and the impending merger had helped the stock more than double.
Trump Media has its fair share of problems. According to an AP report, it lost $49 million in the first nine months of last year, when it brought in just $3.4 million in revenue and had to pay $37.7 million in interest expenses. The other problem is in the falling numbers of the site. Research firm Similarweb estimates that Truth Social had roughly 5 million active mobile and web users in February. That’s far below TikTok’s more than 2 billion and Facebook’s 3 billion — but still higher than other “alt-tech” rivals like Parler.
Truth Social’s brand following will also be highly dependent on the personality of Donald Trump. Trump’s legal problems and his political campaign, while being a draw for some of his supporters, also has the potential to harm the company. According to ABC News Trump Media said in a regulatory filing that it “is highly dependent on the popularity and presence of President Trump.” If Trump were to discontinue his relationship with the company for any reason it “would be significantly disadvantaged.”
(With inputs from AP and other agencies)
