How Trump Media's CEO Made $6.3 Million

Forbes

The former Republican Congressman has cashed in as CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group despite the fact it’s losing money and the stock has sunk.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2024/10/14/devin-nunes-earned-running-truth-social-trump-media/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is my Forbes

00:07colleague, staff writer Zach Everson. Zach, thanks so much for coming on.

00:11Thanks for having me, Brittany.

00:14A company we talk a lot about here is Truth Social. From Trump's involvement to its fluctuating

00:20stock prices and more, you're reporting Devin Nunes, former congressman and the CEO of Trump

00:26Media and Technology Group, has brought home millions from the company. So before we dive

00:30into how he's done that, who is Devin Nunes?

00:35Devin Nunes is a former congressman from California, rural district there, Republican. Prior to

00:42that, he was a dairy farmer. He was a staunch defender of the president during his time

00:48in the House, where he would help to block some investigations. And he left Congress

00:5510 terms in to take over this job as the CEO of Trump Media.

01:01And so how much was he making during his time in Congress? Because you write in your piece

01:06that what he's bringing home now is probably 13 times that amount.

01:10Yeah, yeah, it's not bad. So members of Congress, unless they're like the speaker, make $174,000

01:17a year. It's been that way for several years. You know, it doesn't look good for members

01:23of Congress to give themselves a raise. I would actually argue, I think they might do

01:27better, be better off if they did give themselves some raises because it's, you know, it's a

01:31good salary. But to try to maintain a residence in your home, a residence in D.C. and, you

01:36know, I think a little more money might entice them to do a better job overall of following

01:41ethics rules as well.

01:43Well, he resigned from Congress to take on this role back in 2022. So how exactly was

01:48he pitched to for investors? Has he had any experience in this type of role before and

01:54described the time that he came on to the company? Because at that time, if we remember

01:58a few years ago, a merger looked likely. And as we know now in 2024, that did not come

02:03to fruition.

02:04No, it took quite some time for that to happen. So the only experience that I was able to

02:09find that he had other than government experience was working on the family dairy farm. We did

02:13reach out to Trump media. They just responded to the question saying that they were factually

02:20incorrect but didn't specify why. So I don't know, maybe he does have something else, but

02:24I didn't see anything in any of his bios that would compare to his current job.

02:29They hired him because they thought his leadership experience, familiarity with public scrutiny

02:33and media savvy would add unique and significant value. You know, as you mentioned, the merger

02:39was supposed to happen pretty quickly. Trump Media was going to get purchased by a company

02:44called Digital World Acquisition Corporation, which is a blank check company. They were

02:49going to, that basically was just going to swallow them whole, but they were going to

02:53keep the name Trump Media. But the SEC did not give its blessing for the merger for quite

02:58some time. There were a lot of investigations, most of them on the digital world side as

03:02opposed to the Trump media side. There were allegations of insider trading that we just

03:07saw one of the people go to jail the other day, get sentenced to jail the other day.

03:11There were, Digital World got slapped for discussing the merger before it was supposed

03:18to have. And then, you know, no problem of Trump media's, but it certainly didn't help

03:22that their accountant pled guilty to all sorts of charges and ended up taking a lifetime

03:29ban. So, you know, not Trump media's fault for that, but certainly not something that's

03:33going to help speed a merger along.

03:36So as the CEO of this company, how much does he make, be it salary? Let me restart that.

03:44So as the CEO of this company, how much is Devin Nunes bringing home with salary and

03:49benefits included?

03:51So salary is a very solid $750,000 a year, which may not seem much by the standards of

03:59tech companies, but considering, I think one of my colleagues Chase reported last year

04:04that Truth Social brought in about as much money as the average cheesecake factory restaurant.

04:09It's not a bad salary. So he signed on, Nunes signed on to make $750,000 his first two years.

04:15He was supposed to get a bump to a million beginning in year three, which would be the

04:19beginning of this year. Didn't get any confirmation whether or not that happened. The SEC filings

04:24still talk about that in the future tense. He has received about, so $600,000 in a cash

04:32retention bonus that he got right after the merger happened, $231,000 in housing allowances,

04:39and then about $3.2 million in stock gains. So all told, $6.3 million. He sold some of

04:45the stock back in August, right around the date that they were first able to, as did

04:50several other executives, not Donald Trump. He did that to cover some tax withholding,

04:55supposedly, but he still has maintained most of his shares.

04:59So you said, and our colleague Chase reported, that Truth Social brought home the amount

05:05of an average cheesecake factory. So simply put, can the company afford paying their CEO

05:11this amount of money?

05:14Well right now, yes. There's a lot of young companies they're putting out there that they

05:17are at a growth stage. They have been making a lot of improvements recently. They've moved

05:23into streaming, content delivery network. I think it was just this week you could start

05:27streaming Truth Plus on the web. Last week they released an Android app. So they're certainly

05:33pushing to get stuff out there. So taking a loss early on isn't that unheard of. But

05:40again, it's interesting. The stock price does not match the corporate financials.

05:48What is the stock price? By how much has the value of Truth plummeted from when it started

05:53trading on the NASDAQ in March to now?

05:57Well the high it hit was on that first day. It reached $79.38 a share. It has since dropped.

06:03It hit a low of $11 and something last month, right around the time that it was believed

06:09Donald Trump's lockup period was going to end. Today it closed at $29.90. So it's come

06:14back up a bit since it bottomed out. It seems like the stock, the prices seem to fluctuate

06:20more with what's going on in Donald Trump's political career than with the company.

06:25And so is Devin Nunes, how is he as a CEO? Is he doing anything to combat this up and

06:30down, this fluctuation?

06:33He has reached out to some of his former colleagues in the House, writing to four chairs of House

06:38committees, all Republicans since they are the ones that control the party, or control

06:42the House rather, asking them to investigate possible manipulation of short selling markets.

06:49Doesn't seem likely that that's really an issue, but it's certainly, he's been reaching

06:53out to them, trying to get them to look into that, that it might be artificially depressing

06:57the stock price.

06:59And what is the sentiment at True Social regarding Devin Nunes? Do they have confidence in his

07:05leadership as, you know, the captain of their ship?

07:10Well ProPublica reported earlier this month that there were some internal concerns and

07:16a couple of executives were pushed out after voicing them. True Social, Trump media pushed

07:22back on that, said that was not the case and that they are doing everything above board.

07:27And what about Devin Nunes? What is his future look like? Does it look like he's with Truth

07:32and Trump media for the long haul? Does it look like he could have a political future?

07:39So really interesting. He has $13.8 million left in his campaign account. I happened to

07:46just look at that while I was reporting this. And that is a, you know, I asked a couple

07:49of campaign finance attorneys who confirmed that is a lot of money for somebody who's

07:53been out of Congress to still have in their account. A lot of times they leave Congress,

07:58they have some money, they donate it back to the party, they might kick it to some other

08:02candidate, some might go to charity, you know, some might go towards vanity projects, you

08:08know, working on their library or something like that.

08:10But he's just sitting on it. He actually has like a million and change more now than he

08:15had when he left office. So, you know, the expenses it looks like he's paying are just

08:20to kind of maintain the books and keep everything still above board. So it does look like a

08:24pretty decent cash pile should he want to go back into politics. Again, we reached out

08:30asking about that and did not get a response.

08:32Well, Zach Everson, per usual, I appreciate your reporting. Thank you so much for joining

08:37me.

08:38Thanks for having me, Brittany. Always a pleasure.

08:45Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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