The fact checkers at the NY Times actually thought it was important to ding JB Pritzker for that joke:
I just don’t know what to say anymore about what’s happening at the NY Times. They have totally lost their way. Other fact-checkers have had a different impression:
Meanwhile, here’s the latest on Trump’s tremendous billionaire business savvy from Michael Hilzik in the LA Times:
Hiding in plain sight in the first annual report issued by the parent company of Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform was a statement of inescapable, well, truth.
Issued, perhaps appropriately, on April 1 by Trump Media and Technology Group, the report said: “The value of TMTG’s brand may diminish if the popularity of President Trump were to suffer.” This was cited as a “risk factor” in holding the company’s stock.
So here we are. Since July 21, when President Joe Biden ended his campaign for reelection and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to run against Trump, the stock has been spiraling toward oblivion.
TMTG may lack any meaningful remedy if President Donald J. Trump minimizes his future use of Truth Social.
— Trump Media and Technology Group acknowledges the limits of Donald Trump’s duty to use his own social media platform
From then through Tuesday, shares of the company bearing Trump’s initials (DJT) as its ticker symbol have lost nearly 39% of its value. (The broad stock market as measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has gained almost 2% over the same time span.)
The shares have gained in daily value only five times during that period, and lost ground on 17. The shares closed Tuesday at $21.42, down 82 cents or 3.71%, following a slide of 3.56% the day before.
In the context of the grand sweep of DJT’s history as a publicly traded company, that’s not so remarkable. Measured from its closing price of $57.99 on March 26, when it went public, the stock is down about 63%. Measured from its peak of $79.38, which it reached that day before pulling back, the loss is 73%. Choose which of these calculations you wish; either one fits the dictionary definition of “ugly.”
He may lose and he’s become even more unhinged which may be making some investors finally realize that investing in Trump is for suckers and losers.
And you have to love this:
But other counterweights have become more significant. One is the question of what Trump intends to do with his own shares in the company, which came to 59.9% of the total shares as of mid-July, according to its financial disclosures. Trump will be entitled to sell any or all of those shares starting in mid-September, when a six-month lockup period expires.
Any indication that Trump is moving to liquidate his exposure to DJT would almost certainly crater the shares’ price; anticipation that he is plotting to leave his outside investors in the lurch, as he has done to investors, partners and customers in other ventures, may account for some of the shares’ weakness.
Trump owns so much of the company that he might be able to realize $1 billion or more via stock sales before other shareholders have a chance to get out the door without taking a loss.
He’s not even trying to really create value and his licensing agreement doesn’t require him to.
Then there’s the stature of the company as a going concern. It issues all the disclosures required of a public company in the U.S., but anyone reading them would be well advised to open a window first.
Financially speaking, although it still has a market value of $4 billion, the company doesn’t resemble any enterprise that could have been imagined by the value-investing pioneers Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. In its most recent quarterly disclosure, issued Aug. 12, it reported a loss of $344 million on revenue of $1.4 million for the first six months of this year.
It’s a grift and anyone who doesn’t realize that by now probably deserves what they get.
Hilzik concludes:
I wrote in 2021, when the SPAC deal to take Truth Social public was first announced, that it was poised to set a high-water mark for dubious investment schemes. In April, a month after the IPO, I wrote that that Trump might end up laughing all the way to the bank, but his investors would be left with nothing but tears.
We’re well on the way to that glorious moment when I can say, “I told you so.” Or maybe we’re there already.
And yet it is possible that Trump will walk away with a billion dollars from the scam. The man is a fraudster and a criminal. That he’s allowed to do deals like this at all is an indictment of our system. He shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a publicly traded company.