Trump Media filing opens door for president to sell $2B in stock
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump’s social media company on Monday filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange commission that could allow the president’s trust to sell more than $2 billion of shares.
Trump Media and Technology Group filed a registration with the SEC that would open the door for the president’s trust to sell up to nearly 115 million shares, which are worth more than $2.3 billion.
The filing does not guarantee the sale of the shares nor provide any information about a future sale. Since Trump took office, he transferred his stake of the company into the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, which is controlled by his son, Donald Trump Jr.
A sell-off from Trump, the company’s largest individual shareholder, could panic investors and damage the company’s stock price.
Trump Media could not be immediately reached for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump reacted for the first time on Thursday to the fallout from his tariff announcement, which included markets nosediving and foreign leaders threatening retaliation.
Trump had no public events on his schedule a day after his dramatic unveiling of severe tariffs against virtually all U.S. trading partners, but he did take a single question as he left the White House Thursday afternoon for a trip to a golf event in Miami.
“Markets today are way down … How’s it going?” a reporter asked the president.
“I think it’s going very well,” Trump responded. “It was an operation. I like when a patient gets operated on and it’s a big thing. I said this would exactly be the way it is.”
Trump continued to project confidence and said nations to be affected are now trying to see if they can “make a deal.”
“The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom, and the rest of the world wants to see is there any way they can make a deal.” Trump said. “They’ve taken advantage of us for many, many years. For many years we’ve been at the wrong side of the ball. And I’ll tell you what, I think it’s going to be unbelievable.”
Later, speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump again said he’s willing to make a deal despite White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and others earlier in the day appearing to say the tariffs would not be changed
“The tariffs give us great power to negotiate,” Trump said. “Always have, I’ve used them very well in the first administration, as you saw, but now we’re taking it to a whole new level, because it’s a worldwide situation, and it’s very exciting to see.”
Asked if he were open to deal with these countries calling him, he answered, “Well, it depends. If somebody said that we’re going to give you something that’s so phenomenal, as long as they’re giving us something, that’s good.”
Earlier Thursday, Trump administration officials were deployed to deal with the fallout on the morning news shows.
“The president made it clear yesterday, this is not a negotiation. This is a national emergency,” Leavitt said on CNN.
He’s always willing to pick up the phone to answer calls, but he laid out the case yesterday for why we are doing it this and these countries around the world have had 70 years to do the right thing by the American people, and they have chosen not to,” Leavitt added.
“I don’t think there’s any chance that President Trump is gonna back off his tariffs,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on the network.
World leaders are weighing their response to Trump’s historic levies, some of which go into effect on April 5 and others on April 9.
China, which is going to be hit with a whopping 54% tariff rate, urged the U.S. to “immediately cancel its unilateral tariff measures and properly resolve differences with its trading partners through equal dialogue.”
Domestically, stocks plunged in early trading on Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 3.75%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 5.75% and the S&P 500 tumbled 4.4%.
Vice President JD Vance, before the market selloff, acknowledged that Trump’s massive new tariffs will mean a “big change” for Americans. Trump, ahead of Wednesday’s announcement, had admitted there could be some short-term pain.
“President Trump is taking this economy in a different direction. He ran on that. He promised it. And now he’s delivering. And yes, this is a big change. I’m not going to shy away from it, but we needed a big change,” Vance told “Fox & Friends.”
Leavitt, too, defended the policy as Trump “delivering on his promise to implement reciprocal tariffs” during an appearance on CNN.
“To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump. This is a president who is doubling down on his proven economic formula from his first term,” she said.
Neither Vance nor Leavitt directly addressed the increased costs economists say U.S. consumers are all but certain to face or how they would help Americans.
“What I’d ask folks to appreciate here is that we’re not going to fix things overnight,” Vance said. “We’re fighting as quickly as we can to fix what was left to us, but it’s not going to happen immediately.”
Asked about negative business reaction, Lutnick told CNN, “they’re not counting the factories” that he claimed would be built in the U.S. as a result.
“Let Donald Trump run the global economy. He knows what he’s doing,” Lutnick said.
Trump on Wednesday said jobs will come “roaring back.”
But asked on Air Force One on Thursday how long it would take to get American manufacturing to where he’d like to see it, Trump said, “Well, let’s say it’s a two-year process. You know, they start a plant, and they’re big plants.”
He continued. “We’re giving them approval to also, in many cases, to build the electric facility with it. So, you have electric generation and the plant, and they’re big plants. Now, the good news is a lot of money for them, and they can build them fast, but they’re still very big plants. I’d always say it would take a year-and-a-half to two years.
Preisdent Donald Trump attends a meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, June 12, 2017. (Olivier Douliery/Pool/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is holding the first Cabinet meeting of his second term on Wednesday.
Joining the group will be Elon Musk, the lead adviser of the Department of Government Efficiency whose high status inside the administration has caused some confusion and court challenges.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Musk would be present during Tuesday’s briefing.
“Considering he is working alongside the president and our Cabinet secretaries, this entire administration will be in attendance tomorrow just to talk about DOGE’s efforts and how all of the Cabinet secretaries are identifying waste, fraud and abuse at their respective agencies,” Leavitt told reporters.
The meeting will take place amid DOGE’s effort to implement mass federal workforce cuts. Mixed signals have come from Musk and the administration after a Musk-directed ultimatum to federal workers to essentially prove their worth through email or face termination.
Leavitt said on Tuesday that Trump was deferring to Cabinet secretaries to enact the Office of Personnel and Management guidance, but claimed the administration was unified on the issue and that agency heads were not caught off guard.
“Let me be very clear, the president and Elon, and his entire Cabinet, are working as one unified team and they are implementing these very common-sense solutions,” Leavitt said.
When Musk posted on X last weekend that all federal employees would soon receive an email demanding details of their work from the past week, senior White House officials — who had not been fully briefed on the plan — were initially caught off guard, multiple sources told ABC News.
Musk’s email then set off widespread confusion across the federal government. It created tension among members of Trump’s Cabinet, as multiple agency heads told their employees to hold off on replying until they themselves were briefed on the situation.
The Senate has confirmed Trump’s nominees at a fast pace, approving 18 individuals to date. By comparison, at this point in 2021, the Democrat-led Senate had only confirmed 10 of former President Joe Biden’s Cabinet nominees.
The quick pace comes despite some of Trump’s picks being considered controversial choices to lead their respective agencies.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a veteran and Fox News host, overcame several misconduct allegations to be confirmed after Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., under criticism for his past anti-vaccine views, was narrowly confirmed in a 52-48 vote as was Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
When Trump first publicly held court with his Cabinet in 2017, during his first presidency, members heaped praise on him.
One by one, members thanked Trump and complimented his leadership for several minutes in front of reporters before the meeting shifted to behind closed doors. “Thank you, Mr. President. This is the greatest privilege of my life,” then-Vice President Mike Pence said as he kicked things off.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, then the majority leader, mocked the administration with a spoof video recreating the scene with his own staff.
Trump on Tuesday said his Cabinet had some “great people” but that he believes this bench is “deeper.” Trump has said the biggest mistake of his first term was installing “disloyal people.”
“I think it’s better,” he said of this Cabinet. “I had some people I didn’t really like so much in my Cabinet. But I didn’t know Washington then, I was a New York person.”
(WASHINGTON) — The White House has pulled Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be United Nations ambassador, President Donald Trump announced on Thursday.
“Elise will stay in Congress, rejoin the House Leadership Team, and continue to fight for our amazing American People,” Trump posted on his social media platform.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
