The Nasdaq Market site is seen on the day that shares of Truth Social and Trump Media & Technology Group start trading under the ticker “DJT”, in New York City, U.S., March 26, 2024.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
United Atlantic Ventures, a major shareholder in Trump Media, has sold nearly 11 million shares in the company, according to a regulatory filing by UAV on Thursday, weeks after a federal judge cleared the way for the sale.
The move left UAV — an investment partnership of former “Apprentice” contestants Andrew Litinsky and Wes Moss — owning just 100 shares in Trump Media, which operates the Truth Social app.
UAV was only allowed to sell any of its 5.4% stake in DJT’s outstanding shares after a lock-up agreement that barred company insiders from selling expired on Sept. 19.
UAV is the only known insider to sell off shares since last week.
Litinsky and Moss had pitched the idea of a social media company to former President Donald Trump, and co-founded Trump Media with him in 2021.
The two later fell out with Trump and have been embroiled in lawsuits with Trump Media over their shares since then.
Trump owns more than 56% of Trump Media shares, which trade under the ticker DJT on the Nasdaq. The stock closed Thursday at $13.98 per share, a decrease of about 1%.
The Republican presidential nominee Trump on Sept. 13 said “I have absolutely no intention of selling” his shares in the company after the lock-up period expired.
CNBC has requested comment from Trump Media and a lawyer for UAV about the sales by Litinsky and Moss’ company.
Securities and Exchange Commission filings show that UAV owned 7,525,000 shares of Trump Media as of March 25, the day the company completed a merger with the blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corp.
UAV later was awarded another 3.44 million shares that were issued “for no additional consideration based on the performance of our shares of Common Stock,” Trump Media said in an SEC filing on Sept. 5.
That left UAV owning more than 10.96 million shares.
Thursday’s Securities and Exchange Commission filing disclosing UAV’s sale of the vast majority of those shares does not give the dates or prices for the selloff.
But DJT has traded at prices between $15.50 and $11.75 per share in that period. That suggests UAV would have received between $128 million and $170 million for the shares it sold.
Trump Media had warned in a Florida lawsuit that UAV was planning to sell “all of its shares as soon as possible” once the lock-up period expired.
UAV’s disclosure of the sale in a 13G filing with the SEC came on the heels of a Sept. 6 ruling by a federal judge in Delaware in UAV’s favor in a lawsuit against a securities transfer agent, Odyssey Transfer and Trust Company.
That ruling barred Odyssey from interfering with the transfer of UAV’s Trump Media shares to UAV when the lock-up period expired.
Odyssey had indicated before the ruling that it would take directions from Trump Media on the transfer of share, and Trump Media had refused to say if it would allow Odyssey to remove transfer restrictions without preference to any shareholder.
Trump Media stock soared in its trading debut on the Nasdaq, reaching an intraday high of $79.38 per share and sending the company’s market capitalization north of $10 billion.
But DJT’s price quickly pulled back.
In recent months it has suffered a downward slide that erased more than 80% of the company’s value at its post-merger peak. The company’s market cap is now below $2.8 billion.
Analysts view DJT as a meme stock whose wild price swings were driven more by investors’ support for Trump, the majority shareholder and Truth Social’s main draw, than its business fundamentals.
Trump Media has reported net losses of around $344 million on revenues of less than $2 million in its last two quarterly earnings reports.