Diving brief:
- Phillip Juhan, chief financial officer of Trump Media, which owns Truth Social, has agreed to a plan to sell shares of the company worth about $13.4 million from this month through December 2025, under Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b5-1, according to a report. SEC filing by the company on November 5.
- Under the SEC rule, a company insider aims to avoid insider trading liability schedules before stock trades. Juhan, in the coming months, plans to sell 400,000 shares of Trump Media stock, which closed Monday at $33.41 in regular trading.
- Juhan sold in August approximately $1.9 million in company stock which were remitted to the company “solely to cover withholding taxes with the relevant tax authorities,” according to a securities filing.
Dive overview:
TThree days after winning the Nov. 5 presidential election, Trump sought to quell rumors that he was considering selling shares of Trump Media.
“There are false, untrue and possibly illegal rumors and/or statements, perhaps made by market manipulators or short sellers, that I am interested in selling shares of Truth,” Trump said on Social Truth. “I have no intention of selling,” Trump said in all caps.
“I hereby request that the individuals who started these false rumors or statements, and who may have done so in the past, be immediately investigated by the appropriate authorities,” Trump said on November 8.
Trump Media shares have seen fluctuations since Election Day, causing a Trading halted on Nasdaq today and several last week, as traders looking to profit from the election results entered and exited the market.
As its majority shareholder racked up votes on Election Day, Trump Media released a third-quarter report. net loss of $19.2 million with a turnover of approximately $1 million.
Like Juhan, Trump Media executives — including CEO Devin Nunes, COO Andrew Northwall and general counsel Scott Glabe — sold company stock earlier this year to cover withholding taxes, CFO dive reported.
The sales arrived after the company’s audit committee approved the repurchase of “a total of 128,138 shares of the Company’s common stock from certain executive employees,” at a share price of $22.7, according to an SEC filing.
News of the buyout program came before the end of a six-month period barring Trump from selling his shares in the Sarasota, Florida-based Trump Company.
Trump, Juhan and CEO Nunes were among the executives excluded from sell their common shares in the company for six months after launching in March with the merger with a special purpose acquisition company, according to CNBC.