Stock has fallen 99% since 2023 listing as company pivots to fintech
PublicSquare debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in 2023 through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company run by Omeed Malik, a Trump Jr. ally. Trump Jr., Malik, former Trump campaign adviser Alex Bruesewitz, former Trump administration official Nick Ayers, and Kimberly Guilfoyle — then dating Trump Jr. — gathered in a private NYSE boardroom before the bell-ringing, the Wall Street Journal reported. Then-CEO Michael Seifert rang the opening bell as Trump Jr. and Malik chanted “USA, USA.”
The marketplace was conceived as an online destination where “American brands could sell household goods and family products to conservative, patriotic and religious consumers,” executives told the Journal. The venture failed to gain traction with consumers, executives acknowledged, after President Trump returned to office and embraced the tech companies he had attacked on the campaign trail.
Cumulative losses have reached nearly $160 million through the end of July, and the stock has fallen 99% since the 2023 listing. The company posted full-year net losses of $57.6 million in 2024 and $36.6 million in 2025, with a $12.1 million loss in the first half of 2026, securities filings show. Compensation and consulting agreements, payroll, and administrative expenses drove most of the losses. In 2024, general and administrative expenses totaled $43.3 million — nearly double revenues.
Starting in 2024, shortly after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, PublicSquare paid Trump Jr. $42,000 per month in consulting fees. In 2025, Trump Jr. received more than $500,000 in consulting fees — exceeding the $300,000 salary of Seifert. A brokerage firm founded by Malik received more than $650,000 for consulting work, and Ayers received nearly $400,000 in payments, the Journal reported. Trump Jr. and other board members also received shares of the company worth millions of dollars at the time of grant.
Securities filings show Trump Jr. attended about 60% of board meetings in 2025, the only PublicSquare director who fell short of a 75% attendance threshold. Trump Jr.’s spokesman declined to comment and referred inquiries to PublicSquare. William Kent, the company’s head of investor relations, defended the compensation.
“Mr. Trump’s compensation reflected the fact that he is a well-known public figure who speaks directly to an audience the Marketplace was built to reach,” Kent said in a statement. “His involvement drove real traffic to the Marketplace.” As the marketplace wound down, Trump Jr. “worked to help the company close and maintain material relationships in payment processing and our other fintech offerings,” Kent said, adding that the consulting work was “put on hold in early 2026” after the marketplace closed.
Earlier in August, members of the company’s board — including Trump Jr. — invested a total of $1.3 million into PublicSquare. “This is not charity,” Trump Jr. said in a statement. “I still believe in the mission, and new management is finally delivering on it.”
The company has undergone substantial restructuring. PublicSquare said it laid off 41% of its workforce as part of its pivot to financial technology, with the cuts affecting its marketing team and the producers of “PublicSquare Live,” a streaming show hosted by Erin Scavino — now the wife of Deputy White House Chief of Staff Dan Scavino — that aired on the conservative network Real America’s Voice. PublicSquare also sold off a diaper brand marketed to antiabortion consumers, and the NYSE notified the company it was at risk of losing its listing.
PublicSquare’s website now redirects to Credova’s website after the company’s March 2024 acquisition of the point-of-sale financing firm, which specializes in buy-now-pay-later loans for firearms. The company now operates as a financial technology business.
“We took a business built on addition, too many brands, too much scope, too much head count, too much story, and we cut it down to the parts that actually move money and make margin,” PublicSquare CEO Dusty Wunderlich said in late July when the company reported its latest results. He said the company’s past leadership made “poor decisions and overcommitment.” Seifert declined to comment on Wunderlich’s criticism, the Journal reported.
After PublicSquare acquired Credova, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau opened an investigation during the Biden administration. CFPB lawyers were concerned that consumers were being misled about Credova’s financing of pets and ammunition, according to a person familiar with the investigation. The probe was closed in August 2025, weeks after Bruesewitz, Seifert, and PublicSquare’s general counsel met directly with the CFPB at the bureau’s office, across the street from the White House, according to a person in the room. The CFPB did not respond to a request for comment from the Journal. Kent said PublicSquare did not convince the CFPB to drop the case and that the agency made its own independent judgment. Credova fully complied with disclosure laws, Kent said, adding that “the matter was resolved with no finding of wrongdoing.”
The financial trajectory places PublicSquare among a group of businesses that have enriched Trump’s family and political allies while delivering steep losses to outside investors, the Journal reported. Trump recently reported $1.4 billion in earnings last year from memecoin and crypto ventures. About two-thirds of investors in Trump’s memecoin were in the red as of July, according to data from Nansen cited by the Journal.
Blake Masters, PublicSquare’s lead independent director, defended the company’s direction. “PublicSquare made some big bets years ago that did not pay off, but the board has course-corrected, and believes in the current management team,” Masters said. “The results this year are plain: more revenue, lower costs, and on-track for cash flow positivity in 2027.”
Some vendors said the company’s political focus narrowed its customer base. Perry Milou, a Philadelphia artist who tried to sell prints of “Courage47,” a painting he made inspired by the image of President Trump surviving his 2024 assassination attempt, said PublicSquare’s marketing staff questioned him about paintings he had done of Democrats such as Barack Obama, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden before agreeing to list his product.
“It seemed like they didn’t want anyone to know that I’d painted presidents from the other side of the aisle,” Milou said, estimating he sold 5 to 10 pieces of his art through PublicSquare over two years.