According to a federal ethics transaction record, Attorney General Pam Bondi sold shares in the firm that owns Truth Social for at least $1 million on the same day that President Trump unveiled his comprehensive tariff proposals.
At the time of the sale, which took place on April 2, the day Mr. Trump declared his broad tariffs on goods imported from all foreign nations, Bondi’s ownership stake in Trump Media was valued between $1 million and $5.5 million, according to the documents.
The stock’s value fell more than 10 percent the day after the sale before rising again. On Wednesday, Trump Media’s shares closed at $26 per share, down from its peak sale price of $52.
According to Bondi’s December financial statement, she got shares of Trump Media in exchange for her consulting services, and at the time, her holdings were valued at over $3.9 million.
The parent firm of Mr. Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, Trump Media and Technology Group, reported a $400.9 million loss in 2024 and a 12% drop in yearly sales to $3.6 million.
The business, which is listed on a stock exchange that uses Mr. Trump’s initials, DJT, claimed that a “significant portion” of its revenue drop was due to a change in a revenue-sharing arrangement with an advertising partner that it failed to reveal.
Following his victory in the November presidential election, Mr. Trump gave the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust all of his shares, which were valued at approximately $4 billion on paper, as a “bona fide gift” in December. More than half of the company’s stock was owned by Mr. Trump.
The president’s eldest child, Donald Trump Jr., is the only trustee and has the exclusive ability to vote and make investments in all of the trust’s stocks.
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After being banned from Facebook and X, which was renamed Twitter, after the Capitol uprising on January 6, 2021, Mr. Trump founded Truth Social. Since then, he has been added back to both.
The entrepreneur Elon Musk, who now owns X and leads the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency and was a significant contributor to Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, paid $10 million in February to resolve a lawsuit that Mr. Trump had filed over the suspension.
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, settled a similar claim in January for $25 million.
