As we already discussed here, Truth Social going public wasn't going to save Trump from financial disaster because his stake will be tied up under a lock-up agreement. As former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen discussed on MSNBC this Saturday, he may also have trouble finding anyone that wants to take the stock "as an advance for cash."
Here's more from Raw Story: 'It's not worth anything': Former Trump lawyer blows a hole in 'hype' over Truth Social:
Speaking with the hosts, Cohen accused Trump and his close associates of "hyping" up the value of Truth Social where there is none.
"What is the value to it?" he asked. "The fact that they want to make claims that it's worth $4 billion or $5 billion and he has like 85 percent of the stock. Wouldn't that stock be valued based upon its profitability?"
"I understand it has like 15 million users on it," he elaborated. "Compare that to somebody like Taylor Swift who has 120 million followers — 120 million. What is the profitability that they are making the statement that it is worth not just into the millions or the hundreds of millions, but into the billions of dollars? I don't buy it either."
"They are trying to hype up the stock the same way they would do it for Trump Mortgage, Trump University, Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks, Trump this or Trump that — it's not worth anything " he added.
He's right, and as NBC News' Dareh Gregorian reminded us this weekend, "The last time a Trump company went public it didn't go well for investors":
Trump made millions in the 1990s when his casino company went public. Investors lost a fortune.
Donald Trump’s social media company could go public as soon as next week, paving the way for a potentially huge windfall for a former president who raked in tens of millions of dollars the last time one of his companies was listed on a stock exchange.
That previous, decades-ago experience, however, did not end well for the company or its investors. While a 2016 Washington Post review found that Trump made over $44 million, the company — Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts — lost more than $1 billion and ended up in bankruptcy.
This time around, there’s at least one similarity between the two ventures separated by decades. The newly merged company that’s set to go public, Trump Media, will be listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange with the letters DJT, Trump’s initials. Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts used the same stock ticker when it went public with great fanfare in 1995.
“It’s going public and we’re really very happy about it,” Trump told reporters almost 30 years ago. “It’s going to be a great day.”
