New York
CNN
—

Donald Trump didn’t just win the White House. He also became richer on Wednesday.

Truth Social owner Trump Media & Technology Group, Trump’s social media company, initially shot up in value after CNN and other media outlets predicted Trump would win Tuesday’s presidential election.

Shares of Trump Media, which trades under the ticker symbol “DJT,” rose 35% at the opening bell, translating to an astonishing market value of about $9 billion.

Trump is the dominant shareholder of the conservative social media company, which has little revenue and is losing money.

The president-elect’s 114.75 million shares were briefly worth about $5.3 billion based on those early gains, up from $3.9 billion when trading ended on Election Day. Of course, these are just paper profits and in practice it would be difficult for Trump to sell many of those shares without causing the price to plummet.

And Trump Media’s stock price gave back most of those early gains, recently trading about 8% higher. At these prices, Trump’s shares are worth about $4.2 billion on paper.

For months, Trump Media has served as a proxy for how traders think the election will end.

As Trump’s election chances fell, the company’s stock price plunged to a record low after hitting a record low in September.

But between September 23 and the end of October, Trump Media’s value more than tripled – a stunning spike driven by bets that Trump would win the White House.

Matthew Tuttle, CEO of Tuttle Capital Management, told CNN he is not surprised to see Trump’s media soar on Wednesday, as the stocks are the “only pure play” for traders to bet on a Trump victory.

Tuttle added that there is also likely to be a “massive short squeeze,” caused by ill-timed short bets on the value of the stock in recent days. When a stock price starts to rise sharply, traders who bet against it are forced to buy back the shares to limit their losses. And that in turn causes the price to rise even further.

“A lot of people were fooled by the Iowa poll,” Tuttle said, referring to a poll last weekend that showed Trump no longer leading in a state he won twice.

Still, it’s hard to understand Trump Media’s price tag. At about $9.5 billion, it is now valued at more than twice that of Macy’s and four times that of JetBlue.

This is despite the fact that Trump Media generates very little revenue and Truth Social is a relatively small player in social media.

“The magnitude of his victory helps, but longer term they need to come up with some kind of strategy,” Tuttle said.

Trump Media announced Tuesday afternoon that third-quarter revenue fell 5% to just $1 million.

“The fundamentals don’t matter,” says Michael Block, chief operating officer and co-founder of AgentSmyth, an autonomous AI agent platform for investment ideas.

Block argued that market value reflects the value of a media company branded by “someone who is emerging as perhaps the most influential person of the 21st century.”

“Forget the past forty years and the series of bankruptcies. Think about the here and now and what the brand is worth,” says Block.