Donald Trump, after winning the election on Tuesday, did something very unlike him: He stayed quiet on social media for a couple of days.
After taking a couple of days to celebrate his win, rather than gloat or trash his various enemies, Trump returned to social media, to talk about something else: The future of Truth Social.
Trump, after his defeat in 2020, formed a new media company called Trump Media and Technology Group, which includes his social network Truth Social. The company started when Trump was out of office and banned from Facebook and what was then called Twitter. Now, he’s banned for neither, and about to return to the White House. So what happens with Truth Social?
The president-elect made clear, in his social media return, that he does not plan to unload his majority stake in the media company.
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“THOSE RUMORS OR STATEMENTS ARE FALSE. I HAVE NO INTENTION OF SELLING!,” Trump thundered in a Truth Social post, while also demanding an investigation into who started rumors to the contrary.
Trump was reinstated to X, the former Twitter, following Elon Musk’s purchase of the company, and has posted there occasionally during the presidential campaign, although Truth Social remains his primary social media outlet. Ironically, while Trump and Musk are now close allies, as owners of rival social media companies they are also business competitors.
As of late October, Trump’s media company had a market cap reportedly higher than that of X, even though the former Twitter has hundreds of millions more users. Truth Social’s market cap at the time was $10.8 billion, with X — no longer a public company — reportedly down below $10 billion at the time, compared to the $44 billion Musk paid for it.
However, Trump Media’s stock is very volatile, and its market cap was down to $6.57 billion as of Friday, even as it jumped following Trump’s announcement that he would not be selling shares.
Spike in $DJT shares after Trump said he won’t sell his shares
Read more here: https://t.co/3KPu4enEDj pic.twitter.com/gWoftoHkSC
— Alexandra Canal (@allie_canal) November 8, 2024
Trump is the majority shareholder of the Trump Media and Technology Group, with a stake believed to be worth in the billions.
Straight Arrow News asked an ethics lawyer whether Trump should be forced to sell his stake in the company.
“Legally, he can keep ownership of the company, but it is problematic to have a president or other powerful politician with a controlling stake in a media company,” Richard Painter the ethics lawyer from the Bush White House, told the outlet. “It’s a clear conflict of interest for the president of the United States to perform those executive functions while owning a substantial stake in a media company, whether it’s social media or any other.”
Whether Trump can be forced to sell the stock is another question entirely.
Photo courtesy of Political Tribune media library.
