(NewsNation) — Former President Donald Trump’s net worth plummeted by $900 million since Vice President Kamala Harris stepped into the presidential election, according to new analysis.
This could signal potential uncertainty investors have for a Trump blowout in the race, Tom Smith, a finance professor at Emory University, told NewsNation.
The loss came in the form of the former president’s stake in his social media platform, Truth Social, which has dropped by hundreds of millions, a CNN analysis found.
Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of his Truth Social social media platform, took a 23% hit since July 21st when Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris to take his place, the outlet reported.
Trump is a dominant owner of the company, holding over 114 million shares in Trump Media and Technology Group, which was valued at over $4 billion, the outlet reported.
It has now dropped to about $3.1 billion.
Investors see a “fight” between Trump and Harris
The value of his media company has served as a kind of bellwether for investors gauging his chances for a White House return.
The plummeting stock may be due to investors feeling that Harris is more formidable competition for Trump than Biden was, Smith said.
“People are purchasing Trump stock on speculation that he’s going to be president and then the value of that stock goes up,” he said.
“But I suspect that a reading of the recent polls would indicate that this is not going to be a cakewalk for Trump, and this is going to be a fight.”
However, Smith notes that there is no evidence showing that political candidates’ net worth increases or decreases because they’re popular or less popular.
The media company is the former president’s most profitable business venture, according to Forbes estimations. In April, he met the requirement to receive as many as 36 million additional shares of Trump Media.
Trump Media’s stock fell during the former president’s hush money trial but then ballooned after Biden’s ill-received debate performance and after Trump survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania last month.
Trump’s Truth Social platform overvalued
Some financial experts say the social media company is already overvalued, amounting to making it a meme stock that experiences a rapid price increase due to attention from a dedicated online following, reported Reuters.
“Most analysts would say that the current value of the Trump stock does not match up with the financials and underlying metrics,” Smith said, so “how long will people continue to support it because they support the former president? That’s a trillion-dollar question.”
Trump’s company brings in little revenue compared to its valuation, as the company has struggled to attract users.
Trump Media lost $49 million in the first nine months of last year when it brought in just $3.4 million in revenue and had to pay $37.7 million in interest expenses.
Smith said meme stocks typically crash at a point, but sometimes, they outperform for an extended period of time against everybody’s proper valuation of the company because people are supporting the stock.
It’s still unclear how long or if that will continue as the election goes on, he added.
Declining Truth Social users
Truth Social’s unique visitors sank by 38% year over year in June, marking the platform’s third straight month of declines, according to Comscore data analyzed by TheRighting.
The latest drop was the platform’s second-worst traffic performance since June 2022, when Truth Social had only 1.8 million unique visitors.
The site launched in February 2022 to 3.2 million unique visitors.
“The diminishing audience levels for Truth Social suggest a rejection of the harsh rhetoric expressed by the ex-president and his political allies that is one of the hallmarks of the two-year-old platform,” Howard Polskin, president of TheRighting, said in a statement.
“If this softness persists, it might portend trouble for Mr. Trump at the ballot box in November.”