This year is starting to have something of a 2021-ish vibe to it. Bitcoin is booming, an old American man looks likely to hand leadership of the free world to another old American man, Elon Musk is saying things like “Dogecoin to the moon”, and so-called “meme stocks” are back.
One such stock has been attracting particular attention, and it just happens to be majority-owned by one of the aforementioned old American men: Trump Media & Technology Group. Trading under the ticker “DJT”, its share price surged in value on its market debut in late March, after merging with another 2021 throwback: a special purpose “blank cheque company” known as a Spac.
Trump, who has been scrambling to come up with the cash to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fines, saw his net worth balloon by several billion dollars in a single day as the stock soared by more than 50 per cent at one point. Many gloated a few days later when it fell again by more than $1bn, as the share price dropped on the back of dismal earnings for the company. A six-month lock-up period prevents Trump from cashing out his shares just yet but his roughly 60 per cent stake is still worth — on paper, at least — almost $4bn.