Trump Media Stock Plummets After Truth Social Announces Live TV Streaming Platform

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Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind former President Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, fell sharply again Tuesday after it announced that it’s launching a streaming platform.

Truth Social will stream live TV, the company said, including news, religious channels, “family-friendly content,” as well as “other content that has been canceled, is at risk of cancellation, or is being suppressed on other platforms and services. Trump Media said that much like Truth Social itself, the streaming platform will be “independent of Big Tech.”

Trump Media stock dropped more than 10% and traded at $23.85 per share in mid-morning trading Tuesday following the announcement. That brings the company’s market capitalization to below $3.4 billion — cutting its market valuation by more than half since its first-trading-week highs.

The company said the streaming service is “expected to greatly enhance and expand Truth Social, an iconic Trump brand whose free-speech mission resonates deeply with its community of users and supporters.” Truth Social had 7.7 million total visits last month, according to data aggregator SimilarWeb.

“With our streaming content, we aim to provide a permanent home for high-quality news and entertainment that face discrimination by other channels and content delivery services,” Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes said in a statement Tuesday. “There is a lot of great content that simply can’t find an audience for unjust reasons, and we want to let these creators know they’ll soon have a guaranteed platform where they won’t be canceled.”

Trump Media, the company behind Truth Social, went public on the Nasdaq under the ticker DJT on March 26, after completing its merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.

Only a week after its red-hot debut, Trump Media stock began to nosedive after the company disclosed a loss from operations of almost $16 million in 2023, plus interest expense of $39.4 million, while bringing in just $4.1 million in revenue. That’s compared with a loss from operations of $23.2 million, plus interest expense of $2 million, on $1.5 million in revenue in 2022, according to regulatory filings.

Its stock continued its free-fall this week after Trump Media registered the resale of substantially all of its outstanding securities. Shares held by certain insiders remain subject to lock-up agreement that will expire in August or September.

Nunes, who previously served as a Republican congressman from California, said in an interview on Fox News earlier this month that the company is “well positioned” despite concerns over its profitability. He did not say at the time when he expects the company to be profitable.

 

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Trump Media stock tumbles as the SEC charges its auditor with 'massive fraud'​

• Trump Media's stock price dropped on Friday after its auditor was accused of "massive fraud."
• The auditor BF Borgers did not comply with common accounting standards, the SEC said.
• Shares of the media company fell as much as 9% on Friday morning.

Trump Media shares tumbled yet again on Friday after the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the company's auditor for a "massive fraud" scheme that lasted over two years, according to a new filing.

BF Borgers CPA PC, which audited the financials of Trump Media, had "deliberate and systemic failures to comply" with public company accounting standards, the regulatory agency said.

The firm and its owner, Benjamin Borgers, were accused of "falsely representing to their clients" that audits would comply with common accounting standards, and fabricating audit documents. Those actions affected around 1,500 SEC filings from January 2021 through mid-2023, the SEC said. The order did not name any specific clients.

BF Borgers settled the SEC charges by paying a $12 million penalty, while Borgers, the owner, paid a separate $2 million penalty. The company's operations have permanently shuttered, with Borgers also agreeing to stop "appearing and practicing" as an accountant.

"Ben Borgers and his audit firm, BF Borgers, were responsible for one of the largest wholesale failures by gatekeepers in our financial markets," Gurbir Grewal, the director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, said in a statement. "Because investors rely on the audited financial statements of public companies when making their investment decisions, the accountants and accounting firms that audit those statements play a critical role in our financial markets. Borgers and his firm completely abandoned that role, but thanks to the painstaking work of the SEC staff, Borgers and his sham audit mill have been permanently shut down."

Trump Media shares dropped as much as 9% on Friday morning, but later pared its losses to around 4%. The company is now looking for a new auditor, it told Business Insider in an email.

"Trump Media looks forward to working with auditing partners in accordance with today's SEC order," a spokesperson for TMTG said.

BF Borgers did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

 

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SEC charges firm that audits Trump’s social-media company with ‘massive fraud’ affecting hundreds of filings​

The auditing firm used by Donald Trump’s social-media company, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., has been charged with “massive fraud” by the Securities and Exchange Commission for work done for hundreds of companies on more than 1,500 regulatory filings.

The regulatory agency said that hundreds of audits done by BF Borgers CPA PC contained “deliberate and systemic failures” that included false documentation to make it appear its reports complied with standards set by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

The SEC said the firm and its owner, Benjamin F. Borgers, have agreed to a permanent bar from working as accountants for companies making filings with the agency and to pay civil penalties of $14 million.

“Ben Borgers and his audit firm, BF Borgers, were responsible for one of the largest wholesale failures by gatekeepers in our financial markets,” said Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s enforcement division. “As a result of their fraudulent conduct, they not only put investors and markets at risk by causing public companies to incorporate noncompliant audits and reviews into more than 1,500 filings with the commission, but also undermined trust and confidence in our markets.”

A message left by MarketWatch at BF Borgers’s offices in Lakewood, Colo., wasn’t immediately returned.

According to an order issued by the SEC, BF Borgers was charged with falsely telling clients that its work complied with the accounting oversight board’s standards and that it fabricated audit documents to make it seem that the standards had been met.

The SEC said that of filings made by 369 BF Borgers clients between January 2021 and June 2023, 75% included audit information that did not comply with standards.

The SEC did not name the firms whose filings had been affected. The firm has provided auditing services to Trump Media & Technology Group which operates the Truth Social platform, since 2022.

A message sent to representatives of Trump’s media company wasn’t immediately returned.

The company began trading publicly in March after completing a merger with a special-purpose acquisition corporation, or blank-check company, called Digital World Acquisition Corp.

The ticker symbol was changed from “DWAC” to “DJT,” representing the former president’s initials, when the deal closed.