Donald Trump’s meme stock is booming thanks to a surge in confidence that the former president is on track for a triumphant return to the Oval Office.
Momentum seems to be on the side of Trump in the final stretch of the campaign. He did a high-profile, three-hour podcast with Joe Rogan before later hosting a rally at a packed Madison Square Garden in New York alongside his “Dark MAGA” benefactor, Elon Musk.
Shares in Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) jumped by more than 11% on Friday amid heavy volume—usually a bullish sentiment indicator—and rose more than 8% in early trading Monday. They’ve now reached their highest level since mid-July, making the modest social media platform almost as valuable as Elon Musk’s X.
Even skeptics who distrust the heavily-favored Trump odds found on prediction markets like Polymarket, such as hedge fund legend Paul Tudor Jones, are positioning their portfolio to reflect the growing likelihood of a second Trump administration.
The financially troubled parent of Truth Social now is worth a whopping $8.3 billion, a stunning reversal following September’s historic lows and not far from the estimated $9.4 billion value of Musk’s far larger X platform. This comes despite a hefty second-quarter loss and embryonic revenue approximately equivalent to the average turnover generated by four Starbucks stores.
Traders are however betting traffic to the company’s platform will soar should his Truth Social account—currently followed only by 8 million users—become the preferred method for his second administration when addressing American voters.
Even political blunders don’t seem to diminish enthusiasm for another term in the final days. A comedian and Trump campaigner called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at this weekend’s Madison Square Garden rally and joked he and a black friend of his carved watermelons for Halloween.
The resurrection of Trump’s political fortunes means TMTG has gained nearly a third in value over the past five trading sessions. His own 57% personal stake in the company has similarly ballooned, and is now worth $4.4 billion.
Political pundits are now seeing flashbacks to 2016, when Hillary Clinton lost after much of her campaign messaging revolved around Trump. Pollster Frank Luntz argued last week the high-flying Harris campaign similarly ran off the rails when the vice president switched from talking about how she can help everyday Americans to warning of a second Trump administration.
“She had the best sixty days of any presidential candidate in modern history,” he told CNN. “The moment she turned anti-Trump and focused on him and said ‘don’t vote for me, vote against him’, that’s when [her momentum] froze.”
A key example of that has been her decision to bring Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz Cheney into her campaign, a figure deeply unpopular among the Democrats’ left-leaning base.
The once influential Wyoming neoconservative was one of the few Republicans to turn against Trump following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, and even co-led a House Congressional hearing into the event. Cheney became despised within the Trump-controlled party and was trounced in her 2022 primary race.
