There’s never quite an end to legal maneuvering in Trumpworld, and the latest issue involves the ex-president’s social media company.
Trump, already embattled by damning testimony in hearings before the Jan. 6 Select Committee and criminal and civil investigations in New York and Georgia, might also have to worry about his Twitter knockoff, Truth Social. USA Today reports that Trump and several others close to him, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and a former White House aide, all removed themselves from Truth Social’s board shortly before subpoenas were handed down from the Securities and Exchange Commission and a federal grand jury in New York seeking information about the company’s operations.
Trump started Truth Social last year as an alternative to Twitter, from which he was banned for repeatedly breaking the platform’s policy on spreading false information, specifically about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection. But that’s not why the SEC and potentially federal prosecutors are interested in the company.
From USA Today
The investigations appear to be related to a proposed merger between Trump’s media company and a blank-check company called Digital World Acquisitions Corp., according to a recent regulatory filing.
Digital World is a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Companies such as these raise money to go public with the intent of finding a company to merge with. SPACs are prohibited from finding a partner before going public, but the SEC is investigating potential talks between the two companies that were possibly premature, according to a filing.
The merger between the two companies could reportedly mean $1.3 billion in capital and a listing on the stock exchange for the new company, according to the New York Times.
Truth Social was promoted by Trump as a Twitter alternative for those who didn’t want their content filtered and moderated—in other words, Twitter with even fewer pesky rules to keep trolls in line. A recent article in Forbes described it in less flattering terms, calling it “a political ad campaign in the guise of an open platform for discussion.” The platform has a reported roughly 2 million users, compared with Twitter’s 300 million active accounts.