The layers of corruption here are so deep and varied that it looks like an archeological dig “Forbes now estimates that Trump—who was worth an estimated $2.3 billion before shareholders voted last week to approve the long-delayed plan to take TMTG public—now has a net worth of $6.4 billion, as of 4 p.m. Eastern. That makes the former president one of the 450 richest people in the world, according to Forbes’ real-time tracker.” Oh, Trumpty will be jumping up and down over this. Although maybe he should keep it under his hat. You can’t be bragging how rich you are and crying poor mouth in a fundraiser at the same time. Look sharp now, this is a twisted trail of breadcrumbs we are following.

How did it all get here? Billionaires are pumping money into this stock. This is a shell game and at some point the whole thing is going to blow sky high. The trick is to known when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em. Somebody is making money off this and Trump is clearly looking to make a big, fast score here.

This should be a gigantic story. Maybe it will be on the opinion shows later tonight.

Here’s what Forbes has to say:

Yet it remains to be seen how much of this newfound wealth Trump can actually put to use. While his shares are worth billions on paper, Trump is currently barred from selling any of the stock or pledging it as collateral for loans for six months due to a lock-up agreement. There’s no telling where the shares will be trading by the time the agreement expires. The stock has seesawed ever since TMTG originally agreed to go public, via merger with a blank check special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), in October 2021. The SPAC’s shares climbed to $94.20 on the news, then rose and fell dramatically based on the ever-changing prospect of its merger with TMTG going through and, often, on little more than enthusiasm for Trump himself. Shares jumped more than 40%, ahead of the SPAC’s merger with TMTG, on Monday alone.

If traders keep the stock at such heights over the next six months, Trump might be able to cash out some or all of his shares for billions of dollars, enough to ease the financial burdens of his many legal battles. But companies that go public via SPAC mergers tend to see their share prices fall after they begin trading. And TMTG is no ordinary business. Despite investors valuing it at nearly $8 billion on Tuesday, fewer than 9 million people have signed up for its marquee product, Truth Social, which faces stiff competition from the likes of Facebook and Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter). It lost $40 million over the past four quarters while generating a paltry $4.6 million in revenue—less than half that of an average Cheesecake Factory restaurant.

Quite the saga. Let’s review now shall we?

  1. Truth Social has lost $10 million per quarter for the past four quarters. Generally speaking, in any company, when you have a loss for four consecutive quarters that is a major red blinking light;
  2. Truth Social generated $4.6M in revenue, which as the man points out, is less than half that of a popular restaurant chain;
  3. Trump is massively wealthy today on paper, worth over $6B, but just yesterday a court ruled to reduce his bond from $454M to $175M because of the “hardship” and “practical impossibility” of coming up with that kind of money;
  4. Again, in the real world, through the wizardry of stock valuation, somehow Truth Social is worth $8B on paper, but in point of fact it’s lost both users and cash in 2023;
  5. The people who are investing, Jeff Yass amongst them, aren’t investing because they think Truth Social is an up and coming social media platform. They can tell it’s a dud as well as anyone else. They’re buying the GOP candidate.
  6. As always, with anything Trump it’s hard to predict what will happen. But internal lawsuits are taking place, and while Trump can and probably will get a waiver to cash in his stock, that would only serve to crater the investment and ruin the investors.

Let’s see what happens. Those are the basic facts.

This is a meme stock. It’s value is Trump’s personality, his fame and his infamy. It lost money on Friday, it made money today, let’s see what the morrow brings. There is only one certainty here now: this is a stock that will be written up in investment textbooks for years to come.

This also reminds me of a line from Goldfinger: “If you’re looking for a way to double your money, Mr. Bond, I suggest you take it out of your wallet, fold it in two, and put it back in your pocket.”

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3 COMMENTS

  1. Hmm. Who would have thought that a business entity associated with DJT would be involved with fraud, criminal over-valuing, and double dealing?

    What was that line from a judge on their side about ‘An odor of mendacity’? (Though it’s always nice to hear a judge quoting Tennessee Williams, maybe he felt like a cat on a hot tin roof?).

    As applied here, in this case it’s not an odor.

    It’s a stench.

    15

    • Which judge quoted Tennessee Williams? I wouldn’t put it past Engoron, that’s the kind of personality he has. Stench of mendacity is about right.

      7

  2. America…land of weak, money grubbing, lying, hypocrites, claiming to be free. Free to make 95 percent of us live under the laws they make and they break. Cue up God Bless America! Be sure to pipe it into the prisons since we lock up more citizens than any country on earth, under unjustified laws made by the rich who never go to jail! Another day in the land of the ‘free’ and home of the ‘brave’.

    0

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