And with the move, Trump enters the list of the
world's 500 richest people with a net worth of $6.5
billion.
The merged media company begins trading tomorrow under the ticker
DJT Trump's initials.
What should investors know ahead of its debut?
With me tonight for more is Axios business editor Dan
Primack.
Good to see you, Dan.
Thanks for being on last call.
We saw the chart there of the stock sort of
just moving along and then reduced bail.
And it took a pretty significant leg higher.
Why do you think that was?
Yeah, I'm not sure it was about the bail.
I think it was about Dwack said that they were
going to start listing tomorrow,
that they were going to relist as DJT.
They had gotten the shareholder vote last Friday.
We assumed they would list at some point this week.
They announced they were going to list tomorrow morning.
I think that was what moved the stock.
People who want to buy this thing got excited and
decided they want to get in before before Dwack becomes
DJT.
OK. And so we've got them the relisting tomorrow under
this DJT under a new ticker.
In this point, what about his shares?
He has to hold on to them a while.
Does he have any window to sell ahead of his
his hold pattern?
He does not. He he is under a six month
hold for his shares,
which are in the 10s of millions,
maybe around 70 million shares.
He has a six month hold.
Now he can ask the board of directors for a
special dispensation to sell ahead of that inside that six
month window.
And it is worth noting the board includes his own
son and a couple members of his former administration.
But it's a really tricky balancing act because if he
asks for that,
if it looks like Trump himself is heading to the
exits,
some people, other people might run.
And then there's the question,
is there enough market demand to buy such a large
number of shares that he'd be looking to offload?
So it's a little bit tricky.
He could sell some perhaps,
if he got the board to let him,
but then that could tank the value of what he's
got left.
Oh, is there a reason for him to want to
borrow against those shares?
To borrow against those shares,
Sure. I mean he clearly has a bunch of,
you know, he's got a bunch of court penalties against
him.
Even though he got, even though he got the amount
reduced today,
it's still a lot of money.
So there's a reason he would want to borrow against
them.
Whether someone would be willing to though is another question.
The the underlying company here is lousy.
I mean you're talking about a few $1,000,000 in revenue
for this thing.
I mean that there's been a bunch of comparisons to
this to GameStop.
I mean maybe if GameStop was Google.
I the the the company here,
there's not much of A company underlying this.
So to lend against it,
you're taking a pretty big risk as the lender.