After a long-awaited merger and a quick public float, Donald Trump now controls a media company worth more than double the combined worth of Nine Entertainment, Seven West Media, ARN, and Southern Cross Austereo.
Trump’s Trump Media & Technology Group, parent company of his Truth Social platform, finalised a merger with blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corp that was first announced in 2021.
The company debuted on the stock market overnight, with stock surging as much as 59% before settling and closing at US$57.99 per share, valuing the company at A$12 billion – with Trump owning 58% of the shares in the merged group.
Overnight, Trump has landed amongst the top 500 wealthiest people on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. Bloomberg reports Trump’s net worth jumped by A$6.1 billion overnight, with his personal wealth veering close to A$10 billion.
While this all looks good — and has certainly added billions to the Trump family coffers — it’s unlikely to last, with experts warning this is another ‘meme’ stock, artificially inflated through social media movement.
“The valuation of the business is rich relative to its underlying fundamentals, but I would not get in front of it in the near term,” Thomas Hayes, chairman of Great Hill Capital, told Reuters.
“This valuation may be more of a proxy on the enthusiasm of supporters for Trump than a reasonable estimate of underlying business prospects.”
Despite this pessimism, it was, all-in-all, a very good day for the former-President/future-President.
