One afternoon last month, Chad Nedohin, a part-time pastor and ardent supporter of Donald J. Trump, donned a pirate costume, set up a microphone, and recited a prayer.
Nedohin launched his latest livestream on the right-wing video site Rumble, where he has about 1,400 followers who share his enthusiasm for the former president's social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group. There is.
“Faith comes from hearing, which means hearing the good news about Christ,” said Nedohin, 40. He had fake dreadlocks framing his face under a pirate-style hat.
Mr. Nedukhin and his viewers were awaiting the results of a merger vote that will determine whether Mr. Trump's company can begin selling stock on Wall Street. Soon, news about the Trump media came in via audio feed and was made public.
Mr. Nedoshina raised his hands in celebration. After a few minutes, Trump cut to a Photoshopped video of a rocket exploding into the sky. “We own Trump stock,” he declared. “We are now financial investors in him.”
Nedohin is one of hundreds of thousands of amateur investors who own shares in Trump Media, whose sole platform, Truth Social, is one of the most popular and profitable social media sites in the world. I am confident that it will be. In recent months, tens of thousands of Trump fans have watched Nedohin's webcasts, where he exhorts viewers to invest in the company and asserts that “Trump always wins in the long run.”
The enthusiasm of Mr. Nedukhin and other Trump supporters has turned Trump Media into the latest “meme stock” driven by internet hype rather than business fundamentals. In the public markets, these amateur investors face professional short sellers, professional investors betting that stocks will fail, and crazy day traders looking for a quick profit.
As a result, Trump Media's stock price has fluctuated wildly, sometimes falling as much as 18% and rising as much as 28% in a single day. The company is a “meme stock on steroids,” one analyst recently wrote.
Unpredictable fluctuations in stock prices have a major impact on Trump's finances. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee owns more than $4 billion in Trump Media stock, including recently awarded bonus shares. This is a potential lifeline for him as he faces high legal costs related to the case against him. Stock volatility could add hundreds of millions of dollars to his paper wealth or evaporate it.
Nedohin, a Canadian citizen, will not be able to vote for Trump in November. But he owns more than 1,000 shares of Trump Media, which trades at about $36, down about 50% from its March high.
Nedohin began buying shares in late 2021 after publicly traded shell company Digital World Acquisition Corp. announced plans to merge with Trump Media. Digital World was trading at $93 per share at the time.
Upon completion of the merger on March 25, Trump Media began trading on Wall Street, and the original Digital World stock was converted to Trump Media stock under the ticker DJT.
Nedohin said he owns the shares and has no intention of selling them. During the livestream, he interacted with viewers using screen names such as GOATPOTUS, urging them to keep the faith even when prices drop. “There's no need to panic,” he said on his recent show.
Truth Social, the app currently known as X, “could easily surpass Twitter,” Nedohin said in an interview. “I'm not worried about my investments at all.”
Nedohin doesn't like the term “meme stocks,” preferring “populist personal investing.” But if his bet turns out to be wrong, the financial impact on his viewers and other investors in Trump Media could be devastating, given the risks of these volatile stocks. There is.
By conventional metrics, Trump Media is not a successful business. The company reported revenue of $4 million and a loss of $58 million last year. Compared to mainstream social sites, Truth Social has a small audience. According to data from Similarweb, he's one of 1.5 million people who visited the site last month, and he's just a fraction of the 75 million people who logged on to X.
Still, loyal investors like Nedohin are why Trump Media's stock now trades at a valuation roughly on par with established companies like Wendy's and Western Union. This month, Trump Media chief executive Devin Nunes, a former Republican lawmaker, said the enthusiasm of retail investors was a sign of the company's strength.
Trump Media spokeswoman Shannon Devine said in an email that any suggestion that these traders could lose money amounts to “devastating hundreds of thousands of everyday retail investors in the United States.” said.
Nedohin works from his home in Edmonton, Alberta, as an engineer calculating mechanical stresses in pipes. But his passion is service. Even though he is not ordained, he works part-time at a local church and leads a worship group as an interdenominational lay minister, he said. He is also a guitarist and has a portfolio of original Christian songs, some of which have been played on Canadian radio.
Before starting Truth Social, he said he occasionally posted on Facebook, but never got much attention. He was desperate for an alternative.
Trump co-founded Trump Media in 2021 after being banned from Twitter for making inflammatory posts before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. A year later, Truth Social was up and running, with two former “Apprentice” contestants in charge. ”
Nedohin has been a fan of Trump ever since he slid down the escalator at Trump Tower in Manhattan to announce his 2016 campaign. He considers the former president a supporter of Christian values and believes the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Nedohin created his Truth Social account in May 2022 and quickly found a community that shared his two main interests: Christianity and digital world stocks.
“I've never met a more amazing group of people who are so excited about free speech,” he said.
But Truth Social had glitches and it took months for Trump to post his first message. In 2022, two “The Apprentice” contestants left Trump Media after the Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation into the Digital World merger.
The investigation delayed Trump Media's plans to go public, and Digital World's stock price fell. Mr. Nedoshin was worried. But in the spring of 2022, he says he received a message from God.
“Sometimes when you ask him to move a mountain, he hands you a shovel,” Nedohin said. This time, he said, “a little voice inside me” told him to start a podcast.
Nedohin started the rumble show “DWAC'd Live!”. — Reference to Digital World's stock symbol. On his show, he tried to mobilize Truth Social users and urged them to send letters to Congress protesting the SEC investigation.
He adopted a pirate persona to attract attention, calling himself “Captain DWAC” on livestreams, he said. With Truth Social, he has established himself as an influencer with 6,600 followers.
Nedohin's defense caught the attention of Trump Media board member and former Digital World CEO Eric Swider, who appeared on “DWAC'd Live!” last year.
“Please help us get the word out,” Swider said on the show, adding, “We are so grateful for your support.”
Trump Media settled with the SEC for $18 million in July, paving the way for its merger with Digital World to be approved last month. Mr. Nedoshin was overjoyed.
But the fall in Trump Media's stock price caused confusion online, with some Truth Social users complaining that they had “lost money.” Much of the frustration is directed at short sellers.
Trump Media posted instructions for shareholders on its website explaining how to prevent brokerages from lending stocks to short sellers. Last week, Nunes sent a letter to Nasdaq, where the stock is listed, complaining about “potential market manipulation.” He followed this up with a letter to Republican chairmen of several congressional committees on Tuesday. Trump previously warned that short sellers could be “very, very hurtful.”
“As a Christian, I don't believe in short selling,” Nedohin said. “I only believe in building in a positive direction.”
He remains fully committed to Truth Social. During the SEC protests, he said, he returned to X hoping to raise his awareness about this campaign. Now that Trump Media is a public company, “there's no need to contact the people there,” he said.
Once the livestream ended, Nedohin deleted his X account.