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“Donald Trump's net worth is shooting up even as he is forced to assemble piles of cash to pay court judgments – now climbing onto at least one coveted billionaire's list.

The former president's net worth has climbed to $6.4 billion following last week's announcement that Digital World Acquisition shareholders voted the special purpose acquisition company to merge with the Trump firm that owns his Truth Social platform.

After a jump in its stock price, Trump's net worth jumped by an astonishing $4 billion – which comes on top of his golf, real estate, and branding empire.

Even with that outlay, Bloomberg added Trump to its list of the world's 500 richest people.“

How SWEET it is 💲 🤑 🏦 💵 💰

It's ok, he deserves what he can get from TS.

So he should be able to pay the full bond now...

LurkerMom: After a jump in its stock price, Trump's net worth jumped by an astonishing $4 billion...

There's a sucker born every minute.

For those of us not deep in the Trump Cult, this is fairly clear evidence of blatant corruption... a bought politician. And there's nothing more dangerous to democracy than a president who can be bought and sold.

And you guys screamed that the Bidens (well, not Joe... you never had any evidence, despite months of searching, that Joe took even a nickel) got a $10 million windfall (editor's note: they didn't).

Trump Media is now valued at more than $6.5 billion — even though its flagship Truth Social digital platform took in just $3.3 million in revenue during the first nine months of 2023.

A normal start-up with under $5 million in annual revenue wouldn't make it beyond the Series B phase and an aggressive valuation (15-20X earnings) would value DJT between $50 and $100 million.

In short, this is simply another con like Trump water, Trump steaks, Trump University, or Trump sneakers.

But at least with the sneakers (if you ever actually get them), you may end up with something you can wear for a few weeks before they fall apart. With DJT, the entire enterprise lives and dies on the whims of one man exhibiting clear signs of dementia.

Good luck with that.

commonone: “In short, this is simply another con like Trump water, Trump steaks, Trump University, or Trump sneakers.”

Stretch..Yawn..ZzZzZzZz

A normal start-up with under $5 million in annual revenue wouldn't make it beyond the Series B phase...

A normal start-up with only $5 million in annual revenue would be getting calls from its angel investors pulling their money back out. I think people lose sight of basic math and are overly impressed by "large numbers." $5 million is NOT a large number when talking about a business with dozens of employees and 24x7x365 operations expenses.

Here's what $5 million dollars will buy in the realm of internet busineses:

* 8,612 servers spinning in Amazon Web Services for 1 year
* about 833 servers if purchased outright as capital assets (about $6000 per simple server)
* about 27 IT employees averaging $180,000/year in salary + benefits

In reality, you wouldn't spend ALL the money on just the AWS server instance, you would also need to pay for database storage and incoming / outgoing gigabytes of web traffic. And housing the compute in AWS doesn't eliminate the administrative work for your particular applications. You still have to hire your own engineers to update your app, redeploy it, fix stuff when it breaks, etc.

And DJT is now a public company that needs additional staff to perform its reporting and audit functions and those types of lawyers and accountants don't typically volunteer to work for free either.


WTH


AWS: a t4g.large instance costs $0.0672/hour for 4 virtual CPUs and 8 GB RAM
1 month = 24*30 hours = 720 hours ===> 720 hours x $0.0672 = $48/month/server ==> $580/year/server

aside from the perpetual risk of a bailout from a non-economic MAGA patron, here is a weak thesis based on the unhinged pop in DJT shares this week :

- over the weekend, trump donor yass, who has put actual capital into the SPAC, seems to have constructed a small short position hedge.

- majority shareholder don, and other insiders mostly have free shares as longs. they can more likely lock-in liquid profits, and much sooner, if they can also establish significant shorts.
(the threat to tank the price due to comprehension by MAGA nation seems negligible)

given the cost to short, the tiny volumes, and other possible restrictions, i dont know if there is a legal options mechanism to do this. but it would be their most brilliant play in the inevitable short history of DJT.

aside from the perpetual risk of a bailout from a non-economic MAGA patron, here is a weak thesis based on the unhinged pop in DJT shares this week

As I mentioned in the other thread, I think the stronger thesis is that this becomes a de facto way for people to give money to Trump if he wins re-election.

If your company needs something from the Trump Administration, just put a big ad spend on Truth Social. Unlike his hospitality properties, most of that money will drop to the bottom line (and hence to his personal economic benefit). Even better if that's a diversion of an existing ad spend with Facebook or some other media company that Trump dislikes.

So it's a play on Trump's election, and whether he will signal to companies and other countries that he expects them to use his incredible media company as a demonstration of their acceptance/love/fealty. That's not a terrible bet, though obviously not investment advice for any particular share price level.

the laundering aspect is interesting.
assuming trump has no earlier DJT grift, and the stock stays elevated (~late Sept) after insiders clear sales restrictions : is it possible that this would sways trump's opinion on a money losing company with negligible subscribers and revenue?
with civil fines pressure, even trump's ego would be hard pressed not to cash in then.

i am holding my original skewed probability that the company and stock fail in 2025 regardless of the election.

trump has not and will not go exclusive content on DJT, because mainstream media provides him far more valuable free publicity in his overarching bid to stay out of jail via the oval office. with no effort required, MAGA nation gets enough red meat by leaving fox news on ('we were for trump all along') and facebook tabs open.

- if trump wins, he doesn't need the TS megaphone (er, kazoo).

- if trump loses, he becomes irrelevant regardless of his platform for donations to fight '2 stolen elections'.
high MAGA fatigue expected as a few more realize this is just a loser begging.

- the ad vibes are worse than twitter; nothing but crypto and mom&pop trumpware. i dont know what big money ads would be for, even if not expected to be seen.

assuming trump has no earlier DJT grift, and the stock stays elevated (~late Sept) after insiders clear sales restrictions : is it possible that this would sways trump's opinion on a money losing company with negligible subscribers and revenue?

This theory of the stock presumes that the company won't be losing money, and won't have "negligible" revenue, if Trump wins the election. That if he wins, you'll see a massive uptick in companies and other folks putting ad buys on Truth Social.

Might he sell out of DJT in September, when the lock-up ends, and take his chips off the table before the election? It's possible....but remember, he'd take a huge haircut from the then-current stock price. You can't just dump 60% of the shares of a company (and whatever multiple of the daily float that would be) on the open market and not expect the price to crater. And that goes double for DJT and DJT, because the company only really has value to the extent that Trump is perceived to be invested in it.

So unless he's cratered in the polls, he'll probably bet on himself winning the election and being able to more slowly divest himself of a portion of his ownership over time, so as to not crater the share price.

i suggest you run a reverse-DCF and check your slope on the growth and profit trajectory for the pre-election timeframe, or any timeframe, you propose.
if your model is more qualitative, such as economic translations of subscriber growth and\or meme spikes, cannot help there.

WHAT'S PAST IS PROLOGUE

~2 decades ago, don also had a stock with the same ticker DJT.
it was teen supermodel ivanka that discovered an article denigrating the trump business viability by a group of successful shorts...but the article kind of made sense to her. so eventually, don invited them to meet with him and the CEO.

in his days before being a global threat, don could turn on the charm. some have noted he could have lived a long happy(?) life as a small-time grifter, as many others have throughout the great american experiment in capitalism.
although more focused on his rivals than his business, don talked the guests into closing their shorts at a very good, but not gigantic profit.

DJT, aka Trump casinos, went on to multiple bankruptcies, but leaving the conman intact to soon play another day. ...and another...
the fascinating story is on motley fool :

https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2004/08/11/...

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