Donald Trump's
net worth plunged by more than $1 billion after the stock price of his
struggling social media company fell by more than 20% amid huge losses
in a legal battle between Trump and his co-founders, and now investors
are betting millions that the company will collapse. For more on this,
it's time for "A Closer Look." ♪♪ Presidents from both parties love to brag about
the success of the stock market. In fact, Trump cares so much about
the stock market's performance, he's tried to claim
credit
for its success after he left office. But even his biggest boosters
like Fox host Maria Bartiromo aren't buying it. -The Biden team can say, well, if things are so bad, how come
the stock market is on a roll? -Because they think
I'm going to be elected. -You think
the stock market's rallying because people think
you'll be elected? -I do, yeah. -Even Maria Bartiromo
doesn't believe it. Look at her face. She's so shocked,
she turned into Rudy. By the way,
if you invested $20 in us using th
e Rudy Eyes graphic
five years ago, you'd be a millionaire
right now. That's the face you make when a buddy tells you
the Mets are going to win it all this year. "You think the Mets are
going to win the World Series?" "I do, yeah.
They started 0-5 on purpose, to lull the rest of the league
into a false sense of security. And then when everyone's
guard is down, they pounce --
and they just lost again. Oh, [bleep]. It's all part of the plan!
[Bleep]." All presidents do this. Trump just takes it
to
absurd extremes, as he always does. But the stock market is
not the real economy. For one thing, the wealthiest 10% of Americans
own 93% of the stocks. Although you don't need a study
to tell you that. Just go to any Manhattan
dinner party. I can't tell you
the number of times I've sat next
to someone talking to me about margin calls
and options trading, and I don't know
what the [bleep] any of those terms mean, which is why whenever I get
invited to a dinner party now, I always RSVP with a not
e that says, "Please sit
me next to your dumbest guest." "Oh, and there's my nametag. Oh, hello, Mr. Mayor." "Are you going to eat
your roll? If not, I'm going to take
it home in my pocket." The stock market does not fully
reflect the underlying health of the economy, and there's no
better current example of that than Trump Media and Technology
Group, the parent company of Trump's
tiny and struggling Twitter ripoff, Truth Social. When the company
went public last week, it soared to shocking high
s, despite the fact that
it has lost money and users, which in turn,
massively inflated Trump's net worth on paper. -More breaking news
tonight involving Donald Trump. His media company, which
of course includes Truth Social, soaring in its first day
of trading on NASDAQ, surging 56% at one point
during trading to $78 a share before closing at $58. -Trump now owns 60%
of the new Trump media company, or roughly $78 million a share, a stake that is,
on paper at this hour, worth $4.6 billion. -The
higher the stock goes, the higher that
Donald Trump's net worth is. At yesterday's close, Trump's net worth,
according to Bloomberg, a little over $7 billion. It went up by $4 billion
on Monday alone. -That's right. Trump's net worth went up
by $4 billion in one day. Here's actual footage of me
waking up to that news. -He can't keep getting away
with this! -Now, to be clear,
that's only on paper. Those are unrealized gains. Donald Trump can't spend or borrow against
any of that money yet, althou
gh you know Donald Trump
doesn't see it that way. When Trump heard that his net
worth increased by $4 billion, he immediately ran out,
bought a Ferrari, a Scrooge McDuck money pool, and
a beautiful new head of hair. The only the only way Trump would admit
the money wasn't real is if Rudy asked Trump to pay
his outstanding legal bills. "I made $4 bil this week, baby." "That's great boss.
Now can you finally pay me?" "Actually, Rudy,
that's just on paper. Those are unrealized gains that I legally
cannot spend
or borrow against until the six-month
lockup period has expired, or until the board votes
to allow me to cash out. I'm heartbroken,
Rudy, I really am." "Oh, I'll be fine, boss. Seth
Meyers gave me his dinner roll." Again, this is
all paper money so far. It's not real yet. Just as easily
as Trump's net worth went up and come crashing back down, which is partially
what happened on Monday when the stock price fell. -Truth Social hit the NASDAQ
last week with a bang, but now it's taking
blows. The stock,
which is listed as DJT, lost roughly $4 billion in value
in its first week of trading. -The company's
stock fell more than 20%, and Donald Trump's net worth
fell more than $1 billion. -That's right, his net worth
fell by $1 billion in one day. He basically lost the entirety
of Taylor Swift's net worth. And by the way,
she got that money. That's not theoretical. She can buy private jets
with her debit card. And she made that money
from writing and performing, not from slapping
her name on
a money-losing Twitter ripoff. Although, she could
definitely do that. I'd be first in line to sign up for a new
social media app called TayTok. I do that. I would do that. So why did the stock
suddenly start to tank? Well, reality probably
caught up with it. The company's value
was completely divorced from its underlying business. -So here's the latest numbers
that are concerning investors. Truth Social owner Trump Media
lost $58 million last year, and it generated
very, very little
revenue, just $4.1 million in revenue. And some of this
is not shocking, because we know that
Truth Social is struggling. I mean, it is shrinking. Monthly active US users
on iOS and Android down 51% year over year. I think all of this just
underscores why there's a lot of warnings
out there about this stock, right? One professor told me
it's a bubble. Another basically called it
a meme stock. -There's no way Trump knows
what a meme stock is. He probably doesn't
even know the word "meme." "I own
it
and it has my name in it. It's a me-me stock." So the company lost $58 million
and more than half of its users. And yet, when it went public, it was first valued
at over $7 billion. I'm sure you're asking,
how is that possible? Well, there's an actually
perfectly reasonable explanation, but involves a lot
of complex financial jargon and some very technical,
obscure macroeconomic principles that will take me a long time
to explain, so just do your best
to follow along. Ready? The stock market
is bull[bleep]. [ Laughter ] [ Cheers and applause ] By calling it a meme stock, experts are basically
comparing the Trump stock to GameStop, a stock whose
price gets inflated beyond its underlying value
by online investors. But in the case of GameStop, there was at least
an actual business. Here's how one commentator on the infamous
WallStreetBets subreddit explained the situation. "If you invest in this
on a long enough timeline, you will lose everything. If you think Donald Trump
is going to
create an income positive
social media platform, you are
an absolute [bleep] moron." Now, in fairness, that's not just some
dude's opinion. He's quoting
the company slogan. Agree or disagree, you gotta love the harsh wisdom
of Reddit investors. Reporters and financial experts in the mainstream media are all
carefully parsing their words and saying stuff like, "The
fundamentals of the business do not support the
current market capitalization of the publicly traded
securities." If the dudes on Re
ddit ran CNN,
the headline would say, "This [bleep] is worthless,
mother[bleep]." And here's the real tell that everyone knows Trump's
stock is actually worthless. Investors are
betting against it. "The New York Times"
reported this week that "Traders Are
Betting Millions That Trump Media Will Tumble." In fact, the parent company
of Truth Social is a popular target
for short sellers. Short sellers bet that
the price of a stock will fall. They do that by
borrowing shares of a company and selling
them
into the market, hoping to buy them
back later at a lower price, before returning the shares
to the lender and pocketing the difference
as profit. Again, there's no way
Trump understands any of that. I guarantee
when Trump's aides told him investors were shorting
his stock, he thought they meant that short
people were buying a stock. "Look, I don't like the man, but I'll gladly take
an investment from Ron DeSantis. He can keep his earnings
in his little white boots. We love the little,
whit
e boots." And yeah, as if Trump stock
needed any more reasons to go down in flames, on top of everything else, it is now the subject
of a contentious legal battle in which Trump
is basically trying to kick out the co-founders of the company so he can keep the stock
all to himself. -The former president is suing
the co-founders of Truth Social in an effort to prevent them
from keeping shares in the company's stock. The former president's
attorneys claim that Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss
made a seri
es of costly mistakes that delayed the company
from going public. Trump's legal team asked
the judge to strip both men of their shares in the company. This after Litinsky and Moss filed a lawsuit in February
claiming that Trump and other leaders scheme
to dilute their shares prior to a merger, which would allow
the company to then go public. -How many court battles
can one person have? This guy is in court
more than this lady. Here's what happened. These guys essentially
brought the deal to Trum
p. They took the company public,
and in the process, they basically dumped
a few billion in paper money into his lap. And Trump is now thanking them
by suing to take their stock away. Dude, just take the [bleep] W.
Your company is worthless. This is like Alaska Airlines
suing the passenger who sat next to the open door. "You should be thanking us
for the extra leg room." The stock market is a casino. It's not the real economy. Trump's dumb
social media company is just the latest example of that.
And now investors
are betting millions that the stock will collapse. It's kind of like that scene
from "The Social Network," except in this case, the only thing cooler
than Trump losing $1 million is Trump losing -- -$1 billion. This has been "A Closer Look." ♪♪ [ Chuckles ] The news, right? It can make you crazy. But what if there was
something you could watch that only made me crazy? Well, there it is.
It's called "Corrections." And it's every week, where I respond
to YouTube commenters and w
hat they've said I got
wrong about each week's show. Check it out wherever
you get your YouTube videos -- so YouTube,
where you are right now. [ Silence ] [ Scattered laughter ] [ Scattered laughter ] I can be here all day.
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