Amid questions about the accounting firm auditing Trump Media & Technology Group’s financial records, company documents show that the platform’s chief financial officer made four times as much as CEO Devin Nunes in stock awards.
The company’s registration documents show that Nunes, who was a GOP congressman representing Southern California prior to being named TMTG’s CEO in 2022, got paid $750,000 in fiscal years 2022 and 2023. That’s substantially more than CFO Phillip Juhan’s base salary of $312,500 and $337,500 in the same years, respectively. And when it was still private, TMTG issued promissory notes to each of its named executive officers including Nunes, Juhan, and chief operating officer Andrew Northwall. The amounts of the promissory notes were $1.2 million for Nunes, $4.9 million for Juhan, and $200,000 for Northwall. The company set aside another $650,000 in promissory notes for other executives who aren’t among that trio, TMTG said.
After TMTG combined with blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corp., which runs the social media platform Truth Social, the notes were automatically converted to 625,000 shares of common stock. That translated into 115,000 shares for Nunes, 490,000 for Juhan, and 20,000 shares for Northwall.
A spokesperson for the company did not immediately respond to Coins2Day’s request for comment.
The filing comes as questions have arisen about the company’s accounting firm, BF Borgers, which is based in Lakewood, Colo. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board found deficiencies in each audit it reviewed in two yearly checkups. The Financial Times reported Monday that TMTG quickly hired that firm after its first choice, WithumSmith+Brown, resigned.
The company’s stock price has dropped nearly 60% since it went public, with share prices falling further today to $26.61. The stock fell 15% this morning after the company announced that it might sell 146.1 million shares, plus former President Donald Trump’s stake, which includes 114.8 million shares. Trump owns about 58% of the company, and he stands to take in another 36 million in what are called earnout shares if the company can hit certain performance benchmarks.
As for its executives, Nunes’s base salary rose to $1 million this year, and he’ll be eligible to participate in the bonus plan if there is one. He also got an initial incentive grant of 145,000 restricted stock units (RSUs) that was later amended to a retention bonus of $600,000 in cash, the company said.
Juhan’s agreement called for an initial equity grant of 520,000 RSUs that was also amended to $600,000 in cash. Juhan got a pay bump to $365,000 a year as well.
Northwall, too, received the same $600,000 cash bonus instead of 50,000 RSUs.
Juhan was previously CFO at fitness-club chain Town Sports International Holdings, which closed during the pandemic. The company was unable to refinance its $180 million term loan that came due and was forced to file for bankruptcy, TMTG said.
