Former President Donald Trump’s latest business venture, the Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. which owns his social network, Truth Social, is going public following a merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp.
The merger means stock held by Trump, who owns 60% of the company, could be valued at $3 billion, reported the New York Times. Trump currently needs to post a bond worth hundreds of millions of dollars to appeal a civil fraud ruling against him in a New York court, where he was fined for inflating the value of his real estate assets.
Trump has raged against the bond requirement in recent weeks, including attacks on the judge responsible for the ruling, Arthur Engoron, who he’s called a political lackey for the Democratic Party. The former president has also taken aim at New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the case against him.
“These are Rigged cases, all coordinated by the White House and DOJ for purposes of Election Interference,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday. “THE NUMBER ENGORON SET IS FRAUDULENT. It should be ZERO, I DID NOTHING WRONG! The D.A. Case, that I am going to today, should be dismissed. No crime. Our Country is CORRUPT!”
SEC filings show that the 7-person board of directors for the company includes a familiar cast of characters from the Trump administration, including Trump’s son, Donald J. Trump, Jr., Small Business Administration boss Linda McMahon, and former chair of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes, who’s also the company’s CEO. There’s also Kashyap Patel, a former Nunes aide who worked in Trump’s White House, Former Trump White House US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, a former Louisiana prosecutor called W. Kyle Green, and Eric Swider, a financial services advisor.
Extensive reporting by the New York Times’ Matthew Goldstein and others has detailed some of the twists and turns the company—which was pitched to Trump by “The Apprentice” alums Wes Moss and Andy Litinsky as a “conservative media giant”—has taken to reach its current $5 billion valuation.
According to the Times, DWAC was a “special acquisition company,” or SPAC, which was created to secure loans for Trump, who had trouble getting anybody to trust him enough to give him them anymore, as well as to avoid the more extensive disclosures traditional companies on the stock market are required to make.
“As a public company, we will passionately pursue our vision to build a movement to reclaim the Internet from Big Tech censors,” Nunes said in a press release. “We will continue to fulfill our commitment to Americans to serve as a safe harbor for free expression and to stand up to the ever-growing army of speech suppressors.
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