Jeff Yass’ Susquehanna International Group sold its Trump Media shares after the IPO

Susquehanna International Group LLP (SIG), the Bala Cynwyd-based, multinational trading firm headed by Jeffrey Yass, sold its shares in the company now called Trump Media & Technology Group after the former president’s social-media business went public in March, according to data SIG reported May 7 to the Securities and Exchange Commission for the three months ended March 31.

SIG says it had bought those shares only to facilitate its market-making business, not as a bet on Trump Media’s future.

With that mission accomplished, SIG sold. Now Trump Media’s CEO is calling for an investigation of Yass’ firm and three others involving their role in investor bets against the high-priced but as-yet unprofitable company, in which former President Donald Trump holds a multibillion-dollar stake, at least on paper.

SIG’s earlier SEC reports showing it held more than 1% of Trump Media’s predecessor company, worth over $10 million, before its March 26 initial public stock offering (IPO) drew widespread scrutiny due to Yass’ status as a major political donor in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, who had been floated as a potential Trump cabinet secretary.

At the time, BlackRock, Vanguard, and other big U.S. investment companies hadn’t yet bought the stock in the former president’s company.

SIG officials at that time responded that their firm owned Trump Media shares not as a long-term investor, but as a market maker guaranteeing a supply of shares for brokers and investors for when the company went public, with SIG collecting a slice of each trade as its fee.

The firm said in a statement that SIG bought equivalent short positions, per usual market-maker practice, to ensure it would serve as an honest broker. Yass’ firm had “no economic interest” in whether Trump Media shares rose or fell, the statement said.

SIG, founded by Yass and his then-partners in 1987, also makes markets in share options and futures, or “derivative” contracts that investors use to bet on stock price movements over longer periods. SIG makes its own investment trades. It has amassed a worldwide portfolio of private investments in companies including ByteDance, TikTok’s China-based owner.

SIG’s latest SEC report shows the trading firm on March 31 still held large and nearly balanced positions of Trump Media puts and calls — shares set aside to back trading customers’ bets that the stock will fall or rise over set periods — valued at around $103 million and $112 million, respectively, at March 31. SIG has no authority to vote those shares, which are tied to derivative trading contracts in futures or options on Trump Media stock, the SEC report noted. SIG also holds warrants issued earlier to shareholders, valued at $1.7 million as of March 31.

Trump Media has reported neither sales nor profits. The former president’s popularity among supporters and their hopes that will help turn his company’s Truth Social and other initiatives into profitable platforms has fed strong interest in the stock among small investors, as well as the short-sellers who make their living betting on which high-priced stocks will fall.

So far the believers are winning: At Tuesday’s closing price Trump Media shares were worth a total of $6.7 billion, of which Trump owns more than $4 billion, though he can’t yet turn his shares in for that cash, due to post-IPO restrictions that could expire before the November election.

Trump Media has complained about the short-sellers — and about SIG and its rivals, for their role in betting against the company’s share price.

On April 23, the company’s chief executive — former U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), once one of then-President Trump’s most reliable allies in Congress — sent a letter to Republican leaders in the House of Representatives calling for an investigation of possible “naked” short selling — an illegal practice of pushing share prices down by bluffing about short sales an investor doesn’t really intend to make.

The letter named four firms, including SIG’s GI Execution Services unit, and market-making rivals Citadel Securities, founded by Florida billionaire Ken Griffin; Jane Street Capital; and VIRTU Americas. According to Nunes, the four firms “have been responsible for over 60% of the extraordinary volume of DJT shares traded” since the company went public.

Nunes sent a follow-up letter May 1 complaining about “anomalies” in Trump Media short selling, and naming additional firms it said Congress should investigate for possible trading violations. Nunes did not allege specific violations but urged Congress to look for some.

Citadel Securities, whose founder Griffin, like SIG’s Yass, has donated to Trump’s Republican rivals, in a statement called Nunes “a loser” for blaming Trump Media stock gyrations on traders. Susquehanna has made no public comment about Trump Media’s complaint or its income from market-making in the stock and its derivatives.

Trump Media announced plans this month to deliver a “streaming media platform” to send video from Trump’s Truth Social directly to phone, tablet, and internet-TV customers, and home TV, though it has not laid out a timetable.

And Trump Media hired a new auditor, Semple, Marchal & Cooper LLP, after its previous auditor, BF Borgers, was fined and shut down by the SEC for “massive fraud, including “fabricating” financial information for other companies it audited.