Claim:

U.S. President Donald Trump sold $2.3 billion worth of his Truth Social stock the day before his “Liberation Day” tariffs announcement on April 2, 2025.

Rating:

Context:

There was no evidence, such as mandatory public filings or credible news coverage, that U.S. President Donald Trump sold his Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) shares before his April 2, 2025, tariffs announcement. However, on April 1, TMTG did reregister for sale shares belonging to Trump and several other shareholders, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). At close of market on April 1, Trump’s 114,750,000 shares would have been worth roughly $2.3 billion.

Following U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs announcement (archived) on April 2, 2025, a claim circulated online that Trump sold $2.3 billion worth of his Truth Social stock the day before he unveiled the tariffs.

(Facebook user Cor Poll)

The rumor circulated as a screenshot of a social media post and appeared on X (archived), Facebook (archived) and Instagram (archived). Text in the screenshot read: “Trump sold 2.3 billon worth of his truth social stock the day before he announced the tariffs. And other stock as well. His family did the same. What does that tell everyone?” Snopes readers also emailed us to ask about the claim.

It was not possible to locate the source of the screenshot, but it appeared to be from a Facebook post due to the image that featured in the background.

However, there is no evidence, such as mandatory public filings, that Trump sold his shares in Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the parent company of Truth Social, before the April 2, 2025, tariffs announcement. A spokesperson for a company representing TMTG described the claim as “false” and no credible news media outlets had reported on the president selling his shares as of this writing. Therefore, we have rated this claim as false.

Where the claim originated

The rumor appeared to develop following a TMTG filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 1, 2025, in which TMTG reregistered certain shares — including 114,750,000 shares held by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust — for sale.

According to the SEC filing, Trump was the “settlor and sole beneficiary” of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. The president’s son Donald Trump Jr. was the trustee.

The filing, formally known as a Form S-3 Registration Statement, registered the shares for “possible sale” but left shareholders in control of when or whether to sell.

Shannon Devine, a partner at MZ North America, an investor relations and corporate communications company representing TMTG, said via email that rumors the president had sold his shares were “false.” 

“There has been no sale of President Trump’s shares,” Devine wrote. Trump has previously said he would not sell his shares in TMTG. 

If the sale was legitimate, it would have been eminently newsworthy. However, using multiple search engines, it was not possible to find any credible news reports that the sale had gone through.

SEC reregistration was ‘routine filing,’ TMTG said

In a statement on April 2, 2025, TMTG called reports that it was “paving the way” for Trump to sell his shares a “fake story.” The company said (link below ours):

Legacy media outlets are spreading a fake story suggesting that a TMTG filing today is paving the way for the Trump trust to sell its shares in TMTG. To be clear, these shares were already registered last June on an S-1 form, and today TMTG submitted a routine filing that re-registers them on an S-3 form in order to keep the Company’s filings effective. In fact, there currently is no open window for any affiliate to sell shares.

The SEC defined an affiliate as “a person, such as an executive officer, a director or large shareholder, in a relationship of control with the issuer.” Devine confirmed that Trump was an affiliate of TMTG. 

Trump’s status as an affiliate is important because affiliates are subject to tighter trading rules than non-affiliates. According to the SEC, an affiliate of a company must report via Form 144 any sale that “involves more than 5,000 shares or the aggregate dollar amount is greater than $50,000 in any three-month period.”

Had Trump sold 114,750,000 shares worth around $2.3 billion as online claims suggested, this sale would need to be reported using Form 144. The form has been publicly available through the SEC’s EDGAR system since 2022. There was no Form 144 reflecting the alleged sale on TMTG’s EDGAR page at the time of this writing (archived).

TMTG claimed news reports caused drop in stock price

TMTG filed its Form S-3 with the SEC on April 1. Companies in the U.S. must file a Form S-3 registration statement if they wish to raise capital after their initial Form S-1 filing. The Form S-3 registration statement offers “securities” — in this case shares — to the market, meaning it puts them up for sale.

On April 2, news media outlets such as Axios, the Financial Times (FT), Business Insider and Reuters reported that the SEC filing would allow Trump to sell TMTG stock worth $2.3 billion, referring to the 114,750,000 shares held by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust.

The SEC filing itself did not value Trump’s TMTG stock. Rather, according to Axios, the $2.3 billion figure for Trump’s shares came from the value of TMTG shares — listed on the Nasdaq composite index as DJT — at market close on April 1 of $20.26 per share. Business Insider used a slightly lower price of $19.19 per share at midday on April 1 for its calculations.

Following the SEC filing on April 1 and the news reports above on April 2, DJT stock on Nasdaq dropped from $20.26 at close on April 1 to $17.09 at close on April 4. By comparison, the lowest closing price for DJT stock in April 2024 was $22.84 on April 16.

(Nasdaq)

On April 2 and 3, 2025, respectively, TMTG wrote to Axios and the FT. TMTG said the outlets’ reporting had caused an “immediate” and “severe” drop in TMTG’s stock price.

TMTG further wrote that Axios and the Financial Times had misrepresented the S-3 filing as an intent to sell. In its message to Axios, TMTG wrote:

Crucially, the article completely omits the critical fact, as is stated in the S-3 filing itself, that the filing consolidates prior registration statements in the form of an S-3. The Trust shares, in fact, had been registered previously—as Axios also could have discovered through a search of Google, the SEC EDGAR system, or its own reporting—and the S-3 filing did not cause or reflect a change in the status of those shares.

The omission of this fact allowed Axios to misrepresent the S-3 filing as an indication of a new intention by the Trust to sell its TMTG shares. This false implication was re-reported widely throughout the media, causing an immediate, severe drop in TMTG’s stock price.

In its communication with the FT, TMTG said:

Despite its supposed expertise in financial matters, Financial Times also failed to note that it is customary and expected—and beneficial to shareholders—for a U.S. public company to shift from S-1 to S-3 when it becomes eligible to do so.

DJT was not the only large social media parent company to lose value in the days after “Liberation Day” on April 2. The stocks of Meta (Facebook and Instagram’s parent company), Pinterest and Snap Inc. (photo messaging app Snapchat’s parent company) all dropped between April 2 and April 7.

Sources:

Berkowitz, Ben. “Truth Social Files for Trump’s Trust to Sell up to $2.3 Billion in Stock.” Axios, 2 Apr. 2025, https://archive.ph/qcaYg#selection-385.0-385.13.

Goldstein, Matthew, and David Yaffe-Bellany. “Trump Says He Won’t Sell Shares Tied to Truth Social.” New York Times, 13 Sept. 2024, https://archive.ph/xcEGr#selection-4627.0-4627.19.

Nasdaq. “Meta Platforms, Inc. Class A Common Stock (META).” Nasdaq, https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/meta.

—. “Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. Common Stock (DJT).” Nasdaq, https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/djt.

NYSE. https://www.nyse.com/quote/XNYS:SNAP. Accessed 7 Apr. 2025.

—. https://www.nyse.com/quote/XNYS:PINS. Accessed 7 Apr. 2025.

“Press Releases.” Trump Media & Technology Group. IR, https://ir.tmtgcorp.com/news-events/press-releases/. Accessed 7 Apr. 2025.

Reuters. “Truth Social-Parent Re-Registers Shares That Would Allow Trump Trust to Sell Stock.” Reuters, 2 Apr. 2024, https://archive.ph/5JoZm#selection-975.0-982.0.

“SEC Form S-3: Definition, Parts, When to Use It, and How to File.” Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sec-form-s-3.asp. Accessed 7 Apr. 2025.

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION. Updating EDGAR Filing Requirements and Form 144 Filings. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION, 2 June 2022, https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/final/2022/33-11070.pdf.

Sor, Jennifer. “Trump Media Slides to 6-Month Low after Filing Shows the President’s Trust Could Sell $2 Billion of Stock.” Business Insider, 2 Apr. 2025, https://archive.ph/AmLfW#selection-2345.0-2356.0.

Steer, George. “Trump Kicks off Sale of $2.3bn Truth Social Stake.” Financial Times, 2 Apr. 2025, https://archive.ph/VQ5mC#selection-1577.0-1580.0.

Trump Media & Technology Group. Re: Axios Managing Editor Ben Berkowitz Engages in Defamation, Market Manipulation in Effort to Sabotage Trump Media. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1849635/000114036125011894/ef20046811_ex99-2.htm.

—. Re: Financial Times Engages in Defamation, Market Manipulation in Effort to Sabotage Trump Media. 3 Apr. 2025, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1849635/000114036125011981/ef20046848_ex99-1.htm.

Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. AMENDMENT NO. 2 TO FORM S-1 REGISTRATION STATEMENT. 14 June 2024, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1849635/000114036124030114/ny20026576x31_s1a.htm#:~:text=(ix)%C2%A0114%2C750%2C000%C2%A0shares%20of%20Common%20Stock%20held%20by%20President%20Donald%20J.%20Trump%20(%E2%80%9CPresident%20Trump%20Shares%E2%80%9D).

—. FORM S-3 REGISTRATION STATEMENT UNDER THE SECURITIES ACT OF 1933 TRUMP MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY GROUP CORP. 1 Apr. 2025, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1849635/000114036125011700/ny20046310x1_s3.htm.

Trump Sold Truth Media Stock – Google Search. https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=4f7b8728d565568a&rlz=1C5CHFA_enGB1138GB1138&q=trump+sold+truth+media+stock&tbm=nws&source=lnms&fbs=ABzOT_CWdhQLP1FcmU5B0fn3xuWpmDtIGL1r84kuKz6yAcD_ip1RA3L6hbNpnjK_ML6MGeX9tsslGBAmA7OONF1MAjQZHR3Cs5xDlZ6up7OTwRQC7pbbQ2jQX0GuSmU7vXlpc9vcVMUWXQBx6hyIMFyRAZfwMkAUDdySJBeQxv3cUWQdq-TqBPzuRgvXG6V4mze8uXa-K1dbNH2kUG8BVRvQJD-GGoxWyQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwia9rHOzcaMAxWFUUEAHSxFMk8Q0pQJegQIFxAB&biw=1920&bih=849&dpr=2. Accessed 7 Apr. 2025.

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