Trump Media and Technology Group will raise about $2.5bn to invest in Bitcoin

The Trump Media and Technology Group will raise about $2.5bn to invest in Bitcoin

President Donald Trump’s social media company is raising about $2.5bn to invest in Bitcoin as it looks to diversify revenue streams with a push into the financial sector.

Trump Media and Technology Group Inc is selling $1.5bn in stock at its last closing price and $1bn in convertible notes priced at a 35 percent premium, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

The company, which is planning to launch retail investment products, said the funds would be used to build a “Bitcoin treasury”.

The Bitcoin will be held on Trump Media’s balance sheet alongside existing cash and short-term investments totalling $759m at the end of the first quarter.

Crypto platforms Anchorage Digital and Crypto.com will provide custody for the Bitcoin holdings.

“We view Bitcoin as an apex instrument of financial freedom,” Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes said, hailing the move as a “big step forward” in the company’s plan to acquire “crown jewel assets consistent with America First principles”.

Shares of the company behind Truth Social, a streaming and social media platform, were down 6 percent in early trading on Tuesday.

Trump Media has been exploring potential mergers and acquisitions as it aims to diversify into financial services.

Last month, it reached a binding agreement to launch retail investment products, including cryptocurrency and exchange-traded funds aligned with Trump’s policies.

The Trump family, long rooted in skyscrapers and golf clubs, has quickly opened multiple beachheads in cryptocurrencies, garnering hundreds of millions of dollars. Its other crypto forays include Trump nonfungible tokens (NFTs), a meme coin, a stake in a newly formed Bitcoin producer called American Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency exchange World Liberty Financial.

But the crypto push has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers, including Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who last month asked the US securities regulator about its plans to supervise exchange-traded funds (ETFs) due to be launched by Trump Media.

Trump, who referred to cryptocurrencies in his first term as “not money”, citing their volatility and a value “based on thin air”, has since shifted his views on the technology.

During an event at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida during his presidential campaign in May 2024, Trump received assurances from the crypto industry backers present that they would spend lavishly to get him re-elected.

Last week, Trump rewarded 220 of the top investors in one of his other cryptocurrency projects, the $Trump meme coin, with a swanky dinner at his luxury golf club in northern Virginia, spurring accusations that the president was mixing his duties in the White House with personal profit.