United Atlantic Ventures, its major shareholder Trump mediahas sold nearly 11 million shares of the company, according to a regulatory filing 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 — owning just 100 shares in Trump Media, which operates the Truth Social app.
The amount of money UAV got from the share sales, which took place last week, was not disclosed.
But the range in which DJT’s shares traded during that period – which saw unusually high trading volume – suggests that UAV would have received between $128 million and $170 million for its stock.
UAV was allowed to dispose of its 5.4% stake in Trump Media after a lock-up agreement barring the sale by the company’s insiders expired on September 19.
UAV is the only person known to sell shares after that day.
Litinsky and Moss had pitched the idea of a social media company to former President Donald Trump, the star of “The Apprentice,” and co-founded Trump Media with him in 2021.
The two later fell out with Trump and have since been embroiled in lawsuits with Trump Media over their shares.
Trump owns 114.7 million DJT shares, more than 56% of Trump Media.
After UAV sold its stake, the only other entity that owns more than 5% of Trump Media’s stock is ARC Global Investments II LLC, which owns slightly more than 11 million shares.
DJT stock closed Thursday at $13.98 per share, down about 1%.
Republican presidential nominee Trump on Sept. 13 said he has “absolutely no intention of selling” his shares in the company after the lock-up period ends.
CNBC requested comment from Trump Media and a lawyer for UAV about the sale of the company to Litinsky and Moss.
Securities and Exchange Commission filings show that UAV owned 7,525,000 shares of Trump Media on March 25, the day the company completed its merger with blank check firm Digital World Acquisition Corp., which led to Trump’s company going public .
UAV later received an additional 3.44 million shares issued “for no additional consideration based on the performance of our shares of Common Stock,” Trump Media said in a SEC filing on September 5.
That left UAV owning more than 10.96 million shares.
Thursday’s Securities and Exchange Commission filing disclosing UAV’s sale of the vast majority of those shares did not give the dates or prices for the sale.
Trump Media had warned in a Florida lawsuit that UAV planned to sell “all of its stock as soon as possible” once the lock-up period ends.
UAV’s disclosure of the sale in a 13G filing with the SEC came after a Sept. 6 ruling by a federal judge in Delaware in favor of UAV in an action against a securities transfer agent, Odyssey Transfer and Trust Company.
That ruling prohibited Odyssey from interfering with the transfer of UAV’s Trump Media shares to UAV when the lock-up period expired.
Odyssey had indicated before the ruling that it would take instructions from Trump Media on the stock transfer, and Trump Media had declined to say whether it would allow Odyssey to lift transfer restrictions without preference to any shareholder.
Trump Media stock soared in its Nasdaq debut, hitting an intraday high of $79.38 a share and pushing the company’s market capitalization to $10 billion.
But DJT’s price quickly fell.
In recent months it has suffered a downward slide that has erased more than 80% of the company’s value at its post-merger peak. The company’s market cap is now under $2.8 billion.
Analysts view DJT as a meme stock whose wild price swings were driven more by investor support for Trump, Truth Social’s majority shareholder and core asset, than by its business fundamentals.
Trump Media reported net losses of about $344 million on revenue of less than $2 million in its last two quarterly earnings reports.
