Shares of Donald Trump’s media company, Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), plummeted on Wall Street on Monday as the former US president and new White House candidate faces trial At New York.
Shares of TMTG, which oversees the social network Truth Social, lost 15.91% to $27.41 around 2:40 p.m. GMT, as a trial against Donald Trump for hidden payments began in New York.
The valuation of DJT, the group’s symbol on Wall Street, which reached nearly $11 billion on its first day of trading on March 26, has fallen by almost two-thirds since then.
As of Monday morning, TMTG’s market capitalization stood at $3.7 billion.
This new spectacular fall in the stock comes as the first criminal trial against Donald Trump opened on Monday in New York. In court, the Republican presidential candidate denounced an “attack” on America.
He is on trial for a case of payments intended to buy, via campaign funds, the silence of former porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, a few days before the presidential elections.
The company TMTG, which went public via a merger with a listed SPAC-type vehicle, also submitted documents for registration of new securities to the SEC stock exchange authorities on Monday.
But this is the conversion of call options that will not provide immediate new financing to TMTG, according to a notice from the company.
The former president is the company’s largest shareholder, owning almost 60% of the shares.
According to the company’s bylaws filed with the SEC, TMTG “aspires to build a media and technology powerhouse capable of competing with the liberal media consortium.”
“TMTG was founded to fight against big technology companies” continues the text which cites “Meta, X, Alphabet, Netflix, Amazon and others”.