Even if Trump avoids using liquid assets to post the $175 million bond, though, he will soon need more cash for other reasons. As I observed last week, he is facing an avalanche of adverse legal judgments, and, barring a miraculous change in Trump’s behavior, the strong likelihood of many more in the future—so many that, one way or another, Trump is, I believe, looking down the road at personal bankruptcy. (An SEC filing disclaimer says much the same, minus my hurtful prediction that Trump personally will go bust.)
Plus there’s all that goddamned money. The start of trading for the newly-formed Trump Media & Technology Group more than doubled Trump’s net worth, from less than $3 billion to well over $6 billion. For the first time ever, Trump is listed on Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, an exclusive club consisting of the 500 wealthiest people on Planet Earth. If you think Trump is too important to care about being one of the 500 wealthiest richest people, you haven’t been paying attention. But if Trump lets his $4 billion Truth Social stake ride, he won’t long remain on Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, because Truth Social’s market valuation won’t long remain anything like the $8 billion Wall Street says it’s worth today.
Trump’s $4 billion stake in Truth Social constitutes more than half of all shares. He is barred for six months from selling any of that stake, unless he receives permission from the company’s board. Rather naively, I assumed this would be difficult, because so big a sell-off might look to regulators an awful lot like an illegal “pump and dump” scheme wherein some boiler-room sleazeball talks up the value of a stock to investors and then dumps his shares, making a killing while his clients lose their shirts. The Truth Social board would also likely worry that letting Trump smash the piggy bank would endanger the value of their own investment in the company, and invite a lot of outraged shareholder lawsuits.