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Trump Media shareholder UAV sold almost 11 million shares
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Trump Media shareholder UAV sold almost 11 million shares

United Atlantic Ventures, a significant shareholder of Trump mediasold nearly 11 million shares of the company’s stock, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday, weeks after a federal judge cleared the way for the transaction.

The move left UAV — an investment partnership of former “Apprentice” contestants Andrew Litinsky and Wes Moss — now owning just 100 shares of Trump Media, which operates the Truth Social app.

The amount of money UAV received from last week’s stock sales was not disclosed.

But the price range at which DJT shares traded during that time – which saw unusually high trading volume – suggests that UAV would have received between $128 million and $170 million for its shares.

UAV was allowed to divest its 5.4% stake in Trump Media after a lock-up agreement barring company insiders from selling expired on September 19.

UAV is the only known insider to sell shares after that day.

Litinsky and Moss presented the idea of ​​a social media company to former President Donald Trump, the star of the “Apprentice” show, and founded Trump Media with him in 2021.

The two later fell out with Trump and have since been embroiled in legal disputes with Trump Media over their shares.

Trump owns 114.7 million DJT shares, more than 56% of Trump Media shares.

Following UAV’s sale of its stake, the only other company holding more than 5% of Trump Media shares is ARC Global Investments II LLC, which holds just over 11 million shares.

DJT stock closed Thursday at $13.98 per share, down about 1%.

Republican presidential candidate Trump said on September 13, “I have absolutely no intention of selling his shares in the company after the lock-up period expires.”

CNBC has reached out to Trump Media and an attorney for UAV for comment on the Litinsky and Moss sales.

Securities and Exchange Commission filings show that UAV closed on March 25, the day the company announced a merger with blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corp. concluded, owned 7,525,000 shares of Trump Media stock, which led to Trump’s company going public.

UAV later received an additional 3.44 million shares, which were issued “without additional consideration based on the performance of our common stock,” Trump Media said in a Sept. 5 filing with the SEC.

This meant that UAV owned more than 10.96 million shares.

Thursday’s SEC filing disclosing UAV’s sale of the vast majority of these shares does not provide dates or prices for the sell-off.

Trump Media had warned in a Florida lawsuit that UAV planned to sell “all of its shares as quickly as possible” once the lock-up period expired.

UAV’s disclosure of the sale in a 13G filing with the SEC followed a Sept. 6 ruling by a federal judge in Delaware in favor of UAV in a lawsuit against a securities transfer agent, Odyssey Transfer and Trust Company.

This decision prohibited Odyssey from interfering with the transfer of Trump Media shares from UAV to UAV after the lock-up period expired.

Odyssey had indicated before the ruling that it would seek instructions from Trump Media regarding the stock transfer, and Trump Media had declined to say whether it would allow Odyssey to lift transfer restrictions without favoring a shareholder.

Trump Media stock jumped in its trading debut on the Nasdaq, hitting an intraday high of $79.38 per share and pushing the company’s market capitalization to over $10 billion.

But the price of DJT fell quickly.

In recent months, the company suffered a downturn that wiped out more than 80% of the company’s value at its post-merger peak. The company’s market capitalization is currently less than $2.8 billion.

Analysts view DJT as a meme stock whose wild price swings reflect investor support for Trump, the majority shareholder and Truth Social’s main attraction, rather than its business fundamentals.

Trump Media has reported net losses of about $344 million on revenue of less than $2 million in its last two quarterly earnings reports.

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