Trump Media wants the SEC to investigate a hedge fund that has a $105 million short on the company

• Trump Media is urging the SEC to probe a hedge fund's short position in its stock.
• Qube Research disclosed a $105 million short position on the stock earlier this week.
• The firm says the SEC should looks into "potential manipulation."

Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, wants the SEC to investigate a hedge fund that is shorting its stock for "potential manipulation."

Qube Research & Technologies disclosed a net short position in Trump Media earlier this week, with the total value of the position at about $105 million.

The UK-based hedge fund's disclosure was made to comply with Germany's short-selling regulations.

In an email statement to BI, Qube said its short position in Trump Media was based on its quantitative model and not on the company's fundamentals.

Trump Media asked the SEC to investigate its stock's trading activity, and singled out Qube.

In a memo released on Thursday, Trump Media asked Mark Uyeda, the acting chairman of the SEC, to "immediately investigate this suspicious trading and report your findings back" to the company.

Trump Media, which counts President Donald Trump's trust as a majority owner, is taking issue with the potential for naked short-selling in its stock.

That occurs when a company's stock is sold short by an investor who hasn't borrowed the stock in the first place. The practice is illegal and is sometimes used as a scapegoat for a company's falling stock price.

Shares of Trump Media have plunged 39% year-to-date and are down 62% from their late-October peak.

Trump Media said that the total number of shares sold short from March 31 through April 16 remained virtually unchanged at about 11 million.

Trump Media believes the short-selling data doesn't line up with the position initiated by Qube.

"The above factors, especially when combined with the history of suspicious trading surrounding DJT stock-including DJT appearing on Nasdaq's Regulation SHO Threshold Security List continuously for more than two months in 2024-could be indications of the illegal naked short selling of DJT shares," the firm said in the memo.

This isn't the first time Trump Media has called for investigations into the trading activity of its stock.

In June, the company asked the Nasdaq and Congress to look at "anomalies" related to the trading of its shares.