(Reuters) -Trump Media and Technology Group will raise about $2.5 billion to invest in bitcoin, U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media firm said on Tuesday, as it looks to diversify its revenue streams with a push into the financial sector.
The company is raising the funds by selling $1.5 billion in stock at its last closing price and $1.0 billion in convertible notes priced at a 35% premium, it said in a statement.
The bitcoin will be held on Trump Media’s balance sheet alongside existing cash and short-term investments totaling $759 million as of 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% in early trading.
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 various retail investment products, including crypto and exchange-traded funds aligned with Trump’s America First policies.
The Trump family, long rooted in skyscrapers and country clubs, has opened multiple beachheads in crypto, quickly gaining hundreds of millions of dollars. Those other crypto forays include Trump 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 attracted scrutiny from lawmakers, including Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who last month asked the U.S. securities regulator about its plans to supervise ETFs due to be launched by Trump Media.
(Reporting by Aditya Soni and Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
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