Donald Trump media firm soars in stock market debut

Shares in Donald Trump's media company have soared, as the firm makes its formal debut on the stock market.

Shares surged past $70 each in opening trade - a price that gives the firm a market value of more than $9bn.

The long-awaited moment will inject more than $200m into Trump Media & Technology Group and hands the former president a stake worth more than $5bn.

Analysts say that is far more than warranted, given the performance of the business.

Trump Media operates Truth Social, a Twitter-like service that brought in just $3.3m in revenue in the first nine months of last year and lost nearly $50m.

It says 8.9 million accounts have been created since the platform launched to the general public in 2022 as an alternative to mainstream sites such as Facebook, but it is not clear how many are active.

The former president, who has been scrambling for cash to pay legal penalties, owns more than half of the firm's shares.

He is currently barred from selling his holdings for at least six months, making it difficult for him to tap the windfall immediately.

The company's board, which is stocked with allies including one of his sons, could potentially change that rule, but analysts have said they think that would be unlikely to happen immediately.

The deal to list Trump Media was first announced in 2021.

The move was accomplished via a merger with a publicly listed shell company, Digital World Acquisition Corp, which was expressly created to buy a company and take it public.

Government investigations and other hurdles delayed the milestone, but regulators cleared the deal earlier this year and Digital World shareholders voted in favour last week.

The majority of Digital World shares were owned by individual investors, not Wall Street firms, many of them apparently Trump supporters.