Shares of Donald Trump’s social media company Truth Social rose about 16 per cent in the first day of trading on the Nasdaq.
Its debut boosted the value of Mr Trump's large stake in the company, and the smaller holdings of fans who bought shares as a show of support for the former president.
Trump Media and Technology Group merged on Monday with a blank-cheque company called Digital World Acquisition Corporation Trump Media, which runs the social media platform Truth Social.
It has now taken Digital World’s place on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
Shares closed at $57.99, up 16.1 per cent, giving the company a market value of $7.85 billion.
At one point the stock was up about 59 per cent.
Mr Trump holds a nearly 60 per cent ownership stake in the company, now worth about $4.6 billion.
Many of those investing in Trump Media are small-time investors either trying to support him or to cash in on the mania, instead of big institutional and professional investors.
Those shareholders helped the stock of Digital World more than double this year in anticipation of the merger.
Mr Trump was in New York on Monday attending a hearing on his criminal hush-money case.
Elsewhere, a New York appeals court reduced his $454 million civil fraud judgment to $175 million if he puts up that amount within 10 days.
Truth Social was launched in February 2022, one year after Mr Trump was banned from major social platforms including Facebook and X, formerly Twitter, after the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.
He has since been reinstated to both but has stuck with Truth Social.
“Truth Social is doing very well," Mr Trump told reporters on Monday. "It’s hot as a pistol and doing great.”
On Tuesday, he posted on the platform: “I love Truth Social. I love the truth,” on the platform.
Trump Media has so far not disclosed Truth Social’s user numbers. but now that the company is publicly traded, more information will be disclosed.
Research firm Similarweb estimates that it had about five million active mobile and web users in February.
That is far below TikTok’s more than two billion and Facebook’s three billion.
But it is still higher than other “alt-tech” rivals such as Parler, which has been offline for nearly a year but is planning a comeback, or Gettr, which had fewer than two million visitors in February.
Trump Media lost $49 million in the first nine months of last year, when it brought in about $3.4 million in revenue and had to pay $37.7 million in interest expenses.
The common stock of Trump Media and Technology Group is trading under the ticker symbol “DJT”.
