A gun-selling venture backed by Donald Trump Jr. had an abysmal opening day on Wall Street.
GrabAGun—an online firearms marketplace that Don Jr.’s business partner, Omeed Malik, has described as the “Amazon of guns”—opened on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday. But Trump and Malik’s jubilant chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A! at the opening bell turned to frowns as the company’s shares plummeted 25 percent by 3 p.m.
Don Jr. had bought 300,000 shares in an affiliate company and sits on GrabAGun’s board, Bloomberg reported.
The share price ended the day 24 percent down, shearing $1 million off Don Jr.’s holdings, though his shares were still worth $4 million at the closing bell.
Don Jr. and Malik are partners at 1789 Capital, an investment group that focuses on the “anti-woke” economy.
Representatives for GrabAGun, which traded under the ticker PEW, had argued that gun companies were being “stymied by ‘woke’ capital constraints.”
Don Jr. called the company’s public listing on the stock exchange part of a growing “counterculture.”
“I heard about it when I was on the campaign trail all over the place,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg. “People had a genuine fear that their way of life was just going to be able to be turned off.”
“What we’re giving them with the cash and the public stock and the notoriety is going to allow them to really grow,” he said, Bloomberg reported.
The company’s chief executive, Marc Nemati, told Trump Jr.’s podcast, Triggered, last week that the platform was aimed at “the younger demographic.”
“People like me who buy everything online,” he said.
Last month, he told potential investors that millennials and Gen Z “are now shaping the future of firearms retail.”
“Why shouldn’t we be able to buy a firearm, which is protected by the Second Amendment, in the same vein?” he said.
GrabAGun marks Don Jr.’s latest business venture. He has joined at least eight corporate boards and advisory committees since his father won the election last year.
Don Jr. also serves as executive vice president of development and acquisitions at the Trump Organization, the holding company for most of his father’s business ventures.
Junior has also served as Director of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. and as a director at Public Square Holdings Inc. since November.
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