Trump Media says 'manipulation' is hurting its stock — and it wants the Nasdaq to help investigate
- Trump Media's leadership seems convinced short-sellers are manipulating its stock.
- The company wants the Nasdaq's help to investigate whether "naked" short selling is going on.
Former President Donald Trump's media company is doubling down on claims there's something fishy going on with its stock — and it wants the Nasdaq's help investigating.
In another letter to Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman, Devin Nunes — the CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group — raised concerns Tuesday about "manipulation."
Nunes wants to investigate whether "Wall Street insiders" are engaged in "naked" short selling of the stock, which trades under the DJT ticker. Illegal naked short sales involve shares that haven't actually been borrowed.
He and Trump Media have been trying to crack down on short-sellers who've been betting against Truth Social — whom many of its supporters have blamed for its bumpy performance.
Nunes first wrote to Friedman in April because his company was being hit with "failure to delivers" — which he said resulted from naked short sales. FTDs increased in May, Nunes wrote Tuesday.
As a result, he wants to obtain trading information from 13 financial firms. He said in the letter he'd made the request to Congress and wanted the Nasdaq to "fulsomely cooperate with any and all congressional or other investigations into these firms."
"Nasdaq is committed to the principles of liquidity, transparency, and integrity in all our markets," a spokesperson told BI. "We have long been an advocate of transparency in short selling and have been an active supporter of the SEC's rules and enforcement efforts designed to monitor and prohibit naked short selling."
One of the firms, Citadel Securities, previously called Nunes a "loser" for blaming Trump Media's losses on shorts.
Trump Media shares have been on a roller coaster since the stock debuted in March. In its most recent earnings report, the company said it lost $327 million last quarter.
Despite the heavy losses and paltry reported revenues, the stock has ballooned in value thanks, in part, to meme-stock retail buyers and supporters of Trump, who owns the lion's share of the company.
As of Wednesday, Trump Media had a market capitalization of roughly $8 billion.