Trump set to make $1.25B 'earnout' bonus as Trump Media stock hits benchmark
Former President Donald Trump is set to earn a $1.25 billion “earnout” bonus from his media company after its stock price exceeded a key threshold that made him eligible for the reward.
Trump, who owns a majority stake in Trump Media and Technology Group, is due to receive an additional 36 million shares of the company on Tuesday.
On Monday, Trump Media’s stock closed at around $35.50 — twice the value of the $17.50 benchmark minimum share price that the company needs to hit in order for Trump to be eligible for the bonus.
The earnout requires Trump Media stock to hit the benchmark for 20 trading days within a 30-day trading window beginning on March 25, when the company went public. The 20th day is Tuesday.
Assuming the full issuance of the Earnout Shares, President Donald J. Trump will receive 36,000,000 Earnout Shares, the company said in a securities filing cited by CNBC.
Trump Media, the parent company of his social media app Truth Social, has the power to issue a total of 40 million earnout shares as part of its merger with the blank-check company Digital World Acquisitions Corp.
The filing suggests that some or all of the remaining shares will be issued to Trump Media executives as part of an incentive plan.
“With more than $200 million in the bank and zero debt, Trump Media is fulfilling all its obligations related to the merger and rapidly moving forward with its business plan, a Trump Media spokesperson told The Post.
The presumptive Republican nominee in the upcoming presidential election already owns 78.75 million shares of Trump Media.
The earnout shares would give Trump 65% of the outstanding total, according to SEC filings.
At $35 a share, Trump’s stake in Trump Media is worth some $4 billion on paper.
However, he can’t touch that money to pay off some of his hefty legal bills because of a six-month lockout provision. The Trump-controlled company’s board could waive that provision but that decision risks a selloff by other investors.
Trump appeared in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday for opening arguments in his alleged “hush money” trial.
He was also hit with a $454.2 million judgment by a New York State judge after Attorney General Letitia James successfully sued the former president’s company, accusing it of inflating its assets.
Campaign finance documents indicate that Trump, who has spent nearly $5 million on lawyers last month, has just $6.8 million left in the accounts he has been using to pay them, according to Bloomberg News.
Trump Media began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker name “DJT” at a high of nearly $80 per share on March 26 — briefly giving the firm a market capitalization of more than $9 billion.
The share price has been cut by nearly 70% since hitting its record high last month.
