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Truth Social Parent DJT Hit a Record Low, but the CEO’s August Filing Shows Tax Withholding, Not a Stock Sale

Kevin McGurn's August 21, 2026 Form 4 reports 7,958 shares withheld for taxes under code F, not an open-market sale. Here is how to read the filing and the DJT price claim.
From TheFinanceBase Team5 min to read

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The CEO’s August filing does not show an open-market stock sale. Kevin McGurn, interim CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group, which operates Truth Social and trades as DJT, reported on a Form 4 dated August 21, 2026 that 7,958 shares were disposed of under transaction code F. The SEC filing describes code F as shares withheld to satisfy tax liability tied to vesting or exercise. Separately, a June 25, 2026 report said DJT closed at $7.52 on June 24, 2026, below a previously reported low of $7.76. Those are two facts from two different dates. Nothing in the available evidence shows that the August transaction caused the June decline, and the June price report cannot be extended to October 8, 2026 without a current price check.

What the Form 4 actually reports

A Form 4 is the SEC filing an insider uses to report changes in holdings within a short window after a transaction. The fields that matter for this story are the transaction code, the share count, and the price column. The table below lists what McGurn’s filing reports and how each item should be read.

Item What the filing reports How to read it
Filer Kevin McGurn, interim CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group Company officer reporting his own holdings
Transaction date August 21, 2026 The date of the reported disposition, not the date of any price move in the stock
Shares 7,958 Shares removed from the reporting account under the coded transaction
Transaction code F Shares withheld to satisfy tax liability upon vesting or exercise, per the filing’s description
Reported price per share $8.8864 A value the filing attaches to the transaction; the filing does not describe it as a public-market trade price
Described as an open-market sale? No The filing describes tax withholding, not a discretionary market sale

The Form 4 is the controlling source for what McGurn reported. Anyone quoting the filing should use its transaction code and description rather than summarizing it as a sale.

Why code F is not the same as selling stock

Headlines often treat any reduction in an insider’s share count as a sale. Under the SEC’s transaction-code system, those reductions are not all alike, and the difference matters for the story.

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Code F: shares withheld for taxes or exercise costs

  • The company keeps some of the shares that vest or are exercised to cover the tax bill or exercise cost, rather than the executive selling those shares on the market.
  • The shares leave the executive’s account, so the reported count drops even though no trade happened on the exchange.
  • The price in the filing is the value used for the withholding calculation, not evidence of where the stock traded on that day.

Code S: an open-market sale

  • Code S identifies a sale executed on the open market. That is the code a reader should expect before calling a transaction a sale.
  • McGurn’s filing does not report code S. Describing the August 21 transaction as a sale would misstate what the filing says.

The practical lesson is that a withholding can look like a sale in a headline because shares leave the account. The transaction code, not the share drop, determines how the filing should be described.

What the price record establishes, and what it does not

The price claim in the coverage is narrower than the headline suggests. A June 25, 2026 report, carried by The Daily Beast and attributing the price information to Futurism, said DJT closed at $7.52 on June 24, 2026. That was below a previously reported low of $7.76. As of that report, the claim was a record low.

Rank #2

The available sources do not establish whether the June 24 close remained the lowest closing price through October 8, 2026. They also do not supply a verified October 8 closing price. A reader cannot confirm a current all-time low from the June report alone.

To check the record claim yourself:

  1. Open a historical price table for DJT from a primary exchange data source or your brokerage platform, covering the stock’s full trading history from its first day of trading.
  2. Sort the closing prices (not intraday lows) from lowest to highest. The record claim in the June report concerned closes, so compare closes.
  3. Confirm whether any close after June 24, 2026 fell below $7.52.
  4. Record the October 8, 2026 close and the date of the lowest close you find. Use those dates and figures in any statement about the current record.

The timeline rules out the August filing as the cause of the June low

The June 24 price came before the August 21 transaction. A Form 4 filed after a price low cannot have caused that low. That does not make the transaction irrelevant to later trading, but it means the August filing cannot explain the June decline.

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The company’s own financial context is also reported elsewhere. The Associated Press reported a $238 million second-quarter loss for Trump Media. That figure is a company financial result. It is not evidence of what drove the share price on any given day.

The Associated Press also quoted McGurn after the second-quarter results: “We made the disciplined choice to pivot in order to invest more time and resources in our most important initiatives.” That is McGurn’s statement as quoted by the Associated Press. It describes the company’s strategy and does not address the stock price or the August withholding.

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The April 2026 leadership change

Trump Media announced in April 2026 that Kevin McGurn would succeed Devin Nunes as interim CEO. The company’s statement was attributed to Donald Trump Jr. on behalf of the board: “I want to thank Devin Nunes for his dedicated service to the Company over the past four years, and congratulate Kevin McGurn on his appointment as Interim CEO.”

The Associated Press reported that the leadership change followed a decline in the stock from its pre-election highs. That is context for the timing of the change. It is not a finding about what caused any single trade or price move, and it does not link the August withholding to the stock’s direction.

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How to read the next insider filing

  • Check the transaction code first. Code F is a withholding; code S is an open-market sale.
  • Confirm the transaction date, then compare it with the dates of any price moves you are citing.
  • Treat the price in the Form 4 as the value reported in that filing, not as a live trading price.
  • Pull closing prices from a separate historical source before stating a record low or high.
  • Use the company’s Form 10-Q for financial results, and keep those results separate from the timing of insider transactions.

On the evidence available, the CEO did not sell stock on the open market in August 2026, and the June record-low report does not show that his filing drove the decline. The stock’s record status as of October 8, 2026 needs a current price check before anyone states it as fact.

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