Trump Media & Technology Group faces a $1 billion reckoning at the end of the month, as holders of its convertible bonds gain the right to demand their money back in cash — and the company behind Truth Social does not have enough liquid funds to pay them.
The bonds, sold in May 2025 as part of a $2.5 billion fundraising to build a bitcoin treasury, mature in May 2028. But their terms give holders an early exit: from 30 November, each holder can ask for repayment at face value. With shares in the company down more than 60 per cent this year, trading at $4.64 against a conversion price of $34.72, few have any reason to swap debt for stock.
The Financial Times, which first reported the pressure on the company on Saturday, summed up the position bluntly: sell assets, or take on even more expensive debt.
Trump Media ended the third quarter with about $395 million in cash and other liquid assets, against nearly $2.5 billion in total assets. Most of its wealth sits in cryptocurrency: a portfolio worth about $1.36 billion at the end of September, including 15,649 bitcoin. But most of those coins are not free to sell. Around 11,385 are committed to an options programme that generates yield, and 4,261 are pledged as collateral for the bonds themselves.
Interim chief executive Kevin McGurn has told investors the company is considering a mix of cash and credit to meet any demands, and that it wants to keep as much of its bitcoin as possible. The quarterly filing warns that refinancing may only be available on unfavourable terms, at a high interest rate, or not at all. A failure to meet redemption requests could trigger defaults under its other debt agreements.
The squeeze comes as the business is already losing money. Trump Media reported a $234 million loss for the nine months to September, even though the third quarter showed a $410 million accounting profit driven by unrealised gains on its crypto holdings. Revenue in the quarter was just $3 million. Bitcoin, meanwhile, has fallen by about a third over the past year, eroding the value of the treasury on which the company’s strategy depends.
The debt deadline also collides with another ambition. Trump Media is trying to complete a merger by the end of the year with TAE Technologies, a loss-making nuclear fusion start-up to which it has already lent $300 million. Shareholders are due to vote on the deal on 14 December.
Note: this account rests on the Financial Times’ reporting, as relayed in a Traders Union summary, together with Trump Media’s own quarterly filing and earnings call. The company has not said how many bondholders will seek repayment.
Sources: Financial Times (14 November 2026, as reported by Traders Union: https://tradersunion.com/news/companies/show/4248571-trump-media-bitcoin-debt-risk/); WEEX: https://www.weex.com/news/detail/trump-media-faces-1-billion-debt-bitcoin-bet-turns-sour-km1k08bl1mcul6r8nbwn1i92
