Donald Trump is ready to take Truth Social public, and he's expecting to have a huge cash infusion as a result. But the last time he took a company public, it didn't go so well for the company or investors.
Trump's decision to go public with his right-wing social media company mirrors a move he made with Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts, according to CNBC.
"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," the report states.
ALSO READ: A neuroscientist reveals how Trump and Biden's cognitive impairments are different
It continues:
"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," according to the outlet. "Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts used the same stock ticker when it went public with great fanfare in 1995."
According to the report, that company "lost money every year, but its stock prices did well — for a time. In the initial public offering, the company raised $140 million, selling 10 million shares at $14 each."
Even that success eventually faded.
"By 1996, the stock reached a high of $35 a share before plummeting later that year, in part because the company bought another casino for $100 million more than its estimated $400 million value, The New York Times reported in 2016," according to the report. "The company, meanwhile, kept bleeding cash. The year the stock peaked, it lost $66 million. In 1999, it lost $134 million. And in 2004 — when the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange — it lost $191 million, according to a CNBC review."
