Trump Media shares crash to record low despite better polling

Fortune · Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images

Donald Trump’s political fortunes are beginning to diverge from his financial ones.

Shares in the former president’s social media group plumbed fresh all-time lows on Monday, even as the latest polls suggest he’s gaining ground in a few key battleground states in the nation’s sunbelt.

Until recently, the price of his Truth Social parent company was widely viewed as a barometer of his chances in November.

On Monday, a poll published by The New York Times and Siena College showed him holding onto his lead in Georgia while pulling ahead of Harris in Arizona and North Carolina following their contentious debate this month that saw Trump go viral for claiming immigrants are eating pets.

It also marked the sixth straight day of heavy selling in Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the parent of Twitter clone Truth Social, after a very brief respite when Trump told reporters he had no intention of selling his nearly 115 million shares of stock.

It closed down 10% on the session to finish at $12.15, its lowest level since it first announced three years ago plans to go public via a reverse merger with a blank check investment vehicle known as a SPAC.

That means the value of Trump’s 59% stake in the company, which was until this week subject to a six-month lockup period following the SPAC merger, has dwindled to just $1.4 billion from its peak in March of more than $9 billion.

Assuming Trump doesn’t sell his stake as he claims, the selling pressure will not necessarily let up, either.

Billion-dollar valuation, million-dollar sales

With its meme stock image and refusal to reveal anything about the underlying metrics driving its business, the stock is shunned by financial analysts.

There’s not one estimate on Yahoo Finance for this year’s revenue, let alone earnings or, in TMTG’s case, losses.

Applying the same 7.5x price-to-sales multiple for next year’s revenue that Reddit currently trades to TMTG stock would give it a market cap of around $25 million.