It hasn’t been two weeks since I last remarked on Trump Media & Technology Group Corp and its stock market representative, DJT, but there’s news.
First, company CEO Devin Nunes, formerly Rep (R-CA) and infamous cow-suer, is now former CEO:
Trump Media & Technology Group (NASDAQ:DJT) is shaking up leadership at a time when its business is under growing pressure and investors are feeling the impact.
Shares of the company have fallen around 67% (1) since their rise ahead of the November 2024 election, wiping out more than $6 billion in market value and raising new questions about the future of its core platform, Truth Social. Going back to the early 2022 performance of the shell company that brought Trump Media public, shares have plunged by around 90% (2).
Devin Nunes (3) is departing from his role as CEO after four years, with longtime digital media executive Kevin McGurn stepping in on an interim basis. The company did not give a reason for the change or say when a permanent replacement will be named. [moneywise via yahoo! finance]
The company will try to spin this as a positive, as will any company, but the important fact is the fall in capitalization. In the case of Nunes, he probably faced the impossible task of trying to satisfy the avarice and ambitions of President Trump with an inadequate service that was initially priced by the stock market unrealistically. While he’s never seemed all that bright, I could have some sympathy for him. He could just be a rat jumping off the burning ship.
Next, the Trump family’s memecoin, $TRUMP, has fallen apart. Ja’han Jones of MS NOW notes the President is taking time away from his busy schedule managing a war to … pump it up.
For the second time in a year, President Donald Trump met with cryptocurrency investors who have poured money into his beleaguered and brazenly unethical meme coin scheme.
At an event on Saturday marketed as the “most exclusive crypto and business conference in the world,” Trump addressed the 297 largest investors in his self-enriching, eponymous digital currency at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. That the president squeezed in some crypto-related hype ahead of his appearance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that night shows the extent to which Trump has prioritized money-making crypto ventures in his second term.
Ahead of Saturday’s conference, Ars Technica reported on the issues swirling around Trump’s meme coin, including suspicions of insider trading and a 93% drop in value from last year that’s led to billions of dollars in investor losses.
Or, rather, try to pump it up. There is no discernible pop from the effort, much less a stable rise in value.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Compared to Bitcoin … which is over $76K/coin as of this writing. That may be well off Bitcoin’s high, but it’s also moved off its low substantially. Politico notes
“Nobody likes it,” said Morten Christensen, a crypto investor who still plans to attend the Mar-a-Lago event and was at the 2025 dinner. “People are losing on the coin, and they are vocal. They are the people on Twitter like, ‘Fuck this coin’ or ‘It’s a scam.’ And they’re right, basically.”
Launched just days before his inauguration, Trump’s memecoin is overwhelmingly held by two entities: an affiliate of the Trump Organization and a company run by Bill Zanker, a longtime Trump business partner. Both collect fees on the memecoin’s trading, according to its website.
Memecoins are a highly volatile type of crypto token that generally have no inherent value and trade based on online fervor. The tokens have struggled for much of the last year, amid a broad crypto market sell-off. But Trump’s other recent ventures haven’t fared much better.
A scam and and scammer – my apologies if my reader is a Trump supporter, but that’s how I read the President’s behavior. So how is DJT doing today?
Down from the last report of $10.26/sh, nearly 11%.
Pile on top of that the fact that he’s not achieving his Trump’s War goals, including unconditional surrender, and his domestic policies have fallen to unprecedented levels of public disapproval, and we may see DJT fall well below a billion dollar capitalization. However, depending on that to the extent of going short on DJT is not something I would do. His boasting and blustering, bombastic and ignorant as it may be, can move markets.
Make no mistake, any of these alone are hardly worthy of worry. CEOs are always leaving and joining other companies, for instance. But Trump Media & Technology Group Corp, with its weak offerings, dubious investments, and doubtful plans, seems like a high risk play.
