Trading in the owner of Donald Trump's Truth Social was halted several times on Wall Street on Tuesday as the tiny social media empire's shares were gripped by extraordinary volatility ahead of next week's election.

Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) rose 14% in early trading on Tuesday before quickly giving back gains. It was up 1.5% by late morning.

The stock has risen sharply in recent weeks, tripling in value this month alone, as Trump courted voters in the final stages of the presidential campaign.

TMTG is now worth around $9 billion on the stock market and in October temporarily exceeded the estimated valuation of X, formerly Twitter: a far larger social network than Truth Social, founded two years ago by Trump ally Elon Musk was taken over.

The former president's majority stake in TMTG is currently worth around $5.1 billion on paper after the market had a wild ride this year.

The young company staged a remarkable spring rally, joining the ranks of so-called “meme stocks” such as video game retailer GameStop, which rocked Wall Street by sparking unexpected, volatile rallies as day traders flocked to it.

However, like GameStop, TMTG's peak value reached during its rapid rally set the stage for an almighty crash. The group's shares, which rose above $66 in March, fell to $12.15 last month.

But with presidential election polls close and betting markets putting Trump ahead in the race, TMTG rallied. Its market valuation has quadrupled since the company's shares bottomed in September.

Truth Social, in the Wall Street spotlight, remains a very small social network. According to Similarweb, it received 13.5 million visits last month. X received 706.2 million visits in the same period.