Dec. 22, 2025 — Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (Nasdaq / NYSE Texas: DJT) is back in its natural habitat: extreme volatility. After rocketing higher late last week on news of a surprise pivot into nuclear fusion, DJT stock dropped sharply on Monday, Dec. 22, giving back a meaningful portion of those gains. [1]
As of 18:43 UTC on Dec. 22, DJT traded at $14.51, down $1.58 (-9.82%) from the prior close, with an intraday range of $14.325 to $17.13 on volume of 27.35 million shares.
What’s driving the move is not a new ad product at Truth Social, or a sudden profitability breakthrough. It’s a headline-grabbing plan to merge with TAE Technologies, a privately held, Google-backed nuclear fusion company—an all-stock transaction the companies say is valued at more than $6 billion. [2]
DJT stock today: what happened on Dec. 22, 2025
DJT’s Monday decline came right after a powerful two-day run that followed the merger announcement.
- Multiple market recaps and analyses described the stock as falling around 8.5% on Monday after last week’s rally. [3]
- Another market update characterized Monday’s drop as about 7.8% earlier in the session. [4]
- Live price data showed the decline nearer -9.8% by 18:43 UTC.
That pattern—big spike on a narrative catalyst, then a fast pullback—has been common for DJT, a stock that has often traded more like a sentiment meter than a fundamentals story. Reuters has previously described DJT as popular on retail trading forums and prone to volatility. [5]
The catalyst: Trump Media’s $6B all-stock merger with fusion company TAE
What the companies announced
On Dec. 18, 2025, Trump Media & Technology Group and TAE Technologies announced they had signed a definitive merger agreement to combine in an all-stock transaction valued at more than $6 billion. [6]
Ownership and control: the press release says shareholders of each company are expected to own roughly 50% of the combined entity on a fully diluted basis. [7]
Timeline: the companies said closing is expected in mid-2026, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals. [8]
The fusion pitch (and the AI angle)
The press release frames fusion as a way to supply abundant electricity to support America’s AI ambitions, with the combined company expecting to site and begin construction of a 50 MWe utility-scale fusion plant in 2026, and later pursue larger 350–500 MWe plants. [9]
Independent coverage echoed that positioning: the deal was widely described as a bet on fusion power to meet rising demand from AI data centers. [10]
The money: $200M at signing, plus $100M later
One of the most concrete near-term elements is the funding commitment. The press release states that TMTG agreed to provide up to $200 million in cash to TAE at signing, and that an additional $100 million is available upon initial filing of the Form S‑4 (the SEC registration statement for issuing shares in the transaction). [11]
Board and management
The announced governance structure is also unusual for a media company pivoting into deep-tech energy:
- Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes and TAE CEO Dr. Michl Binderbauer are slated to serve as co-CEOs. [12]
- The planned board is described as nine members, including Donald Trump Jr. as one of the Trump Media directors. [13]
Why did DJT surge last week—and why is it pulling back now?
Analysts describing the move have largely converged on one idea: this was a narrative re-rating, not a financial re-rating.
A market analysis published on Dec. 22 described DJT’s roughly 42% one-day surge as being driven by the fusion-merger announcement, effectively transforming DJT from a niche social-media company into a speculative clean-energy / advanced-technology play tied to the AI power-demand theme. [14]
Barron’s coverage of the rally similarly connected last week’s jump to enthusiasm around the fusion deal—while cautioning that fusion is expensive, uncertain, and long-dated, and that DJT’s fundamentals remain challenging. [15]
So why the pullback on Dec. 22? The simplest explanation is profit-taking and volatility after a headline-driven run-up—especially in a stock that can move quickly when retail sentiment swings. [16]
What happens to Trump’s stake if the deal closes?
Reuters reported that Donald Trump is the company’s largest shareholder, with about 114 million shares (around 40%), and that the merger would dilute his interest to about 20% in the combined company. [17]
AP similarly noted Trump as the largest shareholder (reported as 41%). [18]
What is TAE Technologies—and how “real” is the fusion timeline?
TAE is not a shell concept. The press release says TAE was founded in 1998, has built and operated five fusion reactors, has more than 400 employees, holds 1,600+ patents, and has raised more than $1.3 billion from investors including Google, Chevron Technology Ventures, and Goldman Sachs (among others). [19]
But fusion is still a long game. One tech outlet summarized the ambition bluntly: start building a pilot plant in 2026, with an aim to have it producing power by 2031—a schedule many industry watchers view as highly aggressive given fusion’s history. [20]
That mismatch—big long-term promise vs. short-term uncertainty—is a central reason why DJT’s trading has looked more like a “theme vehicle” than a discounted-cash-flow story.
Trump Media fundamentals: losses, legal costs, and a very large “financial assets” figure
The business today: Truth Social, Truth+, Truth.Fi—and now fusion?
Per the merger press release, after closing, Trump Media would be the holding company for Truth Social, Truth+, Truth.Fi, and TAE’s businesses. [21]
Trump Media has also been expanding outside social media:
- Reuters reported in early 2025 that Trump Media launched the Truth.Fi financial services / fintech brand and authorized investment of up to $250 million via Charles Schwab into a mix of ETFs, SMAs, bitcoin, and other crypto—subject to regulatory approvals and funding finalization. [22]
The latest reported quarterly picture (Q3 2025)
An SEC filing containing Trump Media’s Q3 2025 results (Exhibit 99.1) describes a company with:
- $3.1 billion in “financial assets” (cash, restricted cash, short-term investments, trading securities, and digital assets) as of Sept. 30, 2025 [23]
- A $54.8 million net loss in the quarter, including $54.1 million in non-cash losses tied to fair-value changes and other non-cash items [24]
- $20.3 million in legal expenses in the quarter, primarily related to litigation connected to its 2024 SPAC-related merger [25]
The same filing also highlights:
- $10.1 million of operating cash flow in Q3 2025 (its “second consecutive quarter” of positive operating cash flow, according to the company) [26]
- A crypto partnership and an purchase of ~684.4 million CRO for its balance sheet (funded by $50 million cash and $47 million stock, per the filing) [27]
A separate entertainment-trade report summarized Q3 2025 as net sales of $972,900 and a $54.8 million net loss. [28]
Political and regulatory risk: conflict-of-interest questions are now part of the trade
Because Donald Trump is President and also the company’s largest shareholder, the fusion pivot is drawing scrutiny beyond typical M&A questions.
- Reuters quoted Rep. Don Beyer calling the deal “unprecedented” and raising conflict-of-interest concerns. [29]
- AP highlighted ethical concerns as well, quoting an ethics lawyer (Richard Painter) and framing the merger as arriving amid pro-nuclear policy moves and rising data-center power demand. [30]
For investors, that creates a unique risk bundle: regulatory timelines, disclosure scrutiny, and headline risk could all affect DJT’s price—sometimes independent of progress on Truth Social or fusion engineering.
DJT stock forecast on Dec. 22, 2025: price targets are scarce, algorithmic forecasts vary wildly
Traditional Wall Street coverage: “thin to none”
One reason DJT’s “forecast” landscape is messy: Barron’s noted DJT has no Wall Street analyst coverage, making conventional price-target consensus hard to find. [31]
What does exist: model-driven and media-driven outlooks
In the absence of broad analyst coverage, much of what readers will find online is rules-based forecasting (technical indicators, pattern matching, and automated models). Those projections disagree sharply:
- A model-driven forecast page from CoinCodex projected significant downside over a one-year horizon (while also publishing near-term ranges), underscoring how unstable these algorithmic outputs can be. [32]
- Another forecasting site (Intellectia) published a short-term, one-month directional projection (updated weekly), again based on correlations rather than company fundamentals. [33]
- A separate automated forecast site published extremely high future values—an example of why investors should sanity-check methodology and assumptions before treating “forecasts” as investable truth. [34]
Meanwhile, editorial-style market commentary on Dec. 22 focused less on numeric targets and more on risk framing: volatility, uncertain fusion commercialization timelines, and DJT’s underlying losses. [35]
One important structural detail: DJT is dual-listed (Nasdaq + NYSE Texas)
Trump Media’s shares trade on Nasdaq, and the company has also been a headline listing for NYSE Texas:
- Reuters reported in March 2025 that Trump Media became the first company listed on NYSE Texas, while keeping its primary listing on Nasdaq. [36]
- NYSE Texas’ own listed-securities page includes DJT as a listed symbol. [37]
- Trump Media’s IR FAQ also describes DJT as dual-listed on Nasdaq and NYSE Texas. [38]
This doesn’t change valuation by itself, but it does matter for visibility, branding, and how the company positions itself in the market.
What to watch next: the real catalysts after the headline
If you’re tracking DJT as a news-and-catalyst stock, the next meaningful inflection points are likely to be process milestones, not vibes:
- SEC filings for the merger (Form S‑4) and the pace of regulatory review [39]
- Shareholder approval processes and any revised deal terms before a mid‑2026 close [40]
- Disclosure detail on the combined company’s capital structure, governance, and how fusion capex (capital expenditures) would be financed [41]
- Operational updates on Truth Social / Truth+ and the company’s crypto and fintech initiatives, given the financial statements show continuing losses alongside significant balance-sheet assets [42]
Bottom line on DJT stock (Dec. 22, 2025)
DJT’s move on Dec. 22 looks like a classic post-rally reset: a sharp selloff after a major catalyst, with traders weighing a high-concept long-term fusion narrative against a company that still reports large quarterly losses and faces unusually intense political and regulatory spotlight. [43]
The merger may ultimately give DJT a new identity—part media, part fintech/crypto, part fusion-energy venture—but the market is making it clear that the path from announcement to execution will be volatile, headline-driven, and full of binary moments. [44]
References
1. www.barrons.com, 2. www.globenewswire.com, 3. www.barrons.com, 4. www.gurufocus.com, 5. www.reuters.com, 6. www.globenewswire.com, 7. www.globenewswire.com, 8. www.globenewswire.com, 9. www.globenewswire.com, 10. apnews.com, 11. www.globenewswire.com, 12. www.globenewswire.com, 13. www.globenewswire.com, 14. www.trefis.com, 15. www.barrons.com, 16. www.barrons.com, 17. www.reuters.com, 18. apnews.com, 19. www.globenewswire.com, 20. www.theverge.com, 21. www.globenewswire.com, 22. www.reuters.com, 23. www.sec.gov, 24. www.sec.gov, 25. www.sec.gov, 26. www.sec.gov, 27. www.sec.gov, 28. variety.com, 29. www.reuters.com, 30. apnews.com, 31. www.barrons.com, 32. coincodex.com, 33. intellectia.ai, 34. coincodex.com, 35. www.barrons.com, 36. www.reuters.com, 37. www.nyse.com, 38. ir.tmtgcorp.com, 39. www.globenewswire.com, 40. www.globenewswire.com, 41. www.globenewswire.com, 42. www.sec.gov, 43. www.barrons.com, 44. www.globenewswire.com
