Trump Media stock jumps after Trump says he's 'not selling' shares
Donald Trump will not, he says, be meeting Kamala Harris for a second debate or selling his shares of Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) anytime soon.
“I have absolutely no intention of selling,” he told reporters near the end of a press conference near Los Angeles on Friday afternoon. “I love it.”
Trump reiterated Friday what he says are his plans to both stay posting on his Truth Social account and also keep possession of his shares.
“Elon would love me to come over to X,” he said, referring to Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, but promised, “I didn’t do it for the money; I did it because I really wanted to have a strong voice and it’s a great voice for me.”
Trump also maintains an account on X (formerly Twitter) where he posts regularly but not nearly as frequently as his Truth Social account.
Shares in DJT quickly responded and jumped from about $16.27 per share just before his comments to a high of $20.86 within minutes. The stock split the difference by the end of the day and closed at $17.97 for a gain of 11.97% on the day.
Even with the boost, the stock remains far below its 52-week high of $79.38 as Trump was romping through the GOP primary season. All told, the stock ended the week largely flat after falling earlier in the week following Trump’s weaker-than-expected debate performance against Vice President Kamala Harris.
But the stock has tumbled in recent weeks as Trump returned to the X platform, where he has over 90 million followers. Most recently, the stock sank to new lows after Tuesday's debate, which swung bets toward Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris to win the election.
Trump owns 60% of his company's shares but has been subject to a lockup period and has been unable to sell his stake in the company during this period.
That ends next week on Sept. 19, when the GOP nominee could potentially begin to sell and gain access to what could be a multibillion-dollar windfall but one that, in Trump’s own words, has been “whittled down” in recent months.
The moves have indeed cost Trump and pushed him off the Bloomberg Billionaire's Index of the world's 500 richest people.
The idea behind a lock-up period is to protect a newly public company's interests and allow it to preserve stability before its founders can cash out.
“If I sell, it wouldn’t be the same and I can understand that,” Trump added Friday on the potential effect if he began to sell shares.
This post has been updated.
Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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