Stock In Trump’s Media Company Spikes After Successful App Launch

Shares of former President Donald Trump’s media company spiked early Tuesday following the successful launch of his social media app.

Digital World Acquisition Corp., listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange as DWAC, is a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that took Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) public in an October merger. The company is behind TRUTH Social, an alternative social media platform that debuted in Apple’s App Store late Sunday.

DWAC’s stock price rose to $136.75 a share in pre-market trading, the highest share price since October when DWAC’s merger took place and TRUTH Social was announced. The social media platform is currently the top free available app on the App Store on Tuesday.

Shares have slipped since trading opened, with DWAC currently trading at roughly $92 a share, though the price is still up 10%.

TRUTH Social adopts a similar user interface to Twitter and is designed to be a competitor with dominant social media platforms. The platform’s backing company TMTG added former Republican California Rep. Devin Nunes as chief executive officer in December.

“I created TRUTH Social and TMTG to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech. We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced,” Trump said when announcing the venture. “This is unacceptable.”

The company struck a deal with Rumble, a video sharing platform that aims to provide an alternative to censorious sites like YouTube, for video streaming services in December.