Trump Just Got $1.8B in Trump Media Stock

As of Tuesday, former President Trump owns 64.9% of Trump Media & Technology Group, parent company to Truth Social. That's thanks to the 36 million "earnout" shares he received per a Tuesday filing, bringing his total to 114.75 million shares. As CNN explains, Trump was to get the additional shares if the company's dollar volume-weighted average price stayed at or above $17.50 for 20 of its 30 initial trading days. The 20th trading day was April 23, and the stock had held at or above $17.50 that full time.

As of Tuesday, those shares were worth $1.8 billion, and lockup restrictions apply, meaning Trump can't sell or borrow against them for some time. As CNN notes, the share price has been all over the place, running from $22.84 to $66 since going public on March 26. Indeed, NBC News reports shares on Wednesday briefly passed the $50 mark for the first time in almost a month before falling; shares are down about 6%, to just under $47, as of this writing. Quartz reports that Trump Media's market cap was upward of $8 billion when it first started trading but fell to half of that in April; a "weekslong rebound" brought its market cap to $6.83 billion as of market close on Tuesday. (More Truth Social stories.)