Frank Figliuzzi hosts The Frank Figliuzzi Show on Lincoln Square. He is an FBI Assistant Director (retired); 25-year veteran Special Agent; and author of the national bestseller, The FBI Way, and Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers. Subscribe to his Substack.
I own Donald Trump—or, more precisely, about eight dollars’ worth of stock in Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG).
Forgive me; I didn’t know. TMTG trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker DJT, at the current share price of $9.13, (as of this writing) so my stake amounts to less than one share held indirectly through popular funds that track and include the 1,000 largest companies by market capitalization.
I’ll forgive you, as well, because you likely own some too, if you have a 401(k), retirement plan, or mutual fund. I stumbled on this revelation while researching a video I worked on about TMTG and its close on-line and AI ally, Rumble, Inc., now rebranded as RUM Group, Inc. Let me explain.
Increasingly, it seems there’s just no avoiding Donald Trump’s pervasive presence in our lives. Trump’s use of Truth Social allows him to bypass traditional media and speak directly to the public. I don’t follow Trump or use the platform, but his posts frequently drive the daily news cycle, especially when he seems to be up posting all night. News outlets routinely screenshot, analyze, and report on these statements, ensuring Trump’s commentary is a fixture of mainstream news, political talk shows and social media feeds.
Isn’t it ironic, then, that the platform Trump uses to loudly leak all over lives is run by the company, TMTG, that now quietly creeps into our personal finances?
Here’s how this works. It’s called indirect exposure. If you’re like me, when you check the performance of your 401(k) plans, mutual funds or individual retirement accounts (IRAs) you probably look at broad metrics like recent growth or compound interest. But beneath the diverse layers of myriad stocks sits a complex quagmire of individual corporate assets.