Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of the social networking site Truth Socialcollapsed on Thursday after former President Donald Trump was found guilty in his hush money trial.
A New York jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election by paying hush money to a porn star who said the two had sex.
When news of the verdict broke, Trump Media’s share price fell about 9 percent in after-hours trading on Thursday.
The stock, which is traded under the ticker symbol “DJT”, was extremely volatile Since its debut in late March, it has joined the group of meme stocks that tend to swing from highs to lows as deep-pocketed investors try to take advantage of upside momentum at the right time.
The stock has tripled this year, often posting double-digit percentage swings up or down in a single day. It reached a high of nearly $80 in intraday trading on March 26. By comparison, the S&P 500 is up nearly 10% year-to-date.
Earlier this month, Trump Media reported that it lost more than $300 million last year. quarteraccording to its first earnings report as listed company.
For the three-month period ended March 31, the company reported a loss of $327.6 million, which it said included $311 million in non-cash expenses related to its merger with a company called Digital World Acquisition Corp. DWAC is an example of a so-called special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), which offers young companies a faster and easier way to list their stocks, but with far less control.
Trump Media & Technology this month fired an auditor that federal regulators recently accused of “massive fraud”. The media company fired BF Borgers as its independent accounting firm on May 3, delaying the filing of its quarterly earnings report.
Trump Media had previously worn out at least two other auditors – one resigned in July 2023 and another was fired by the company’s board in March, just as BF Borgers was being rehired.
Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records at his company. The accusation is that he covered up potentially embarrassing stories about himself during his 2016 Republican presidential campaign.
The charge, a felony, arose from restitution to then Trump lawyer Michael Cohen after paying $130,000 in hush money to Porn star Stormy Daniels to silence her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump was accused of misrepresenting Cohen’s reimbursements as legal expenses to conceal that they were tied to a hush money payment.
Trump’s defense argued that the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal services.