Donald Trump may not be coming back to Twitter any time soon, or ever, but that’s okay: He has his own Twitter clone. But it’s just not the same. Truth Social, which bowed chaotically in February, hasn’t been an outright failure like so many of the former president’s business ventures. But it has struggled with tech issues and slow user growth. And it’s been shady from the start.
Now, as per The New York Times, there are more questions about its dealings. A new federal investigation is looking into how an obscure Miami investment firm knew about a key deal months before it was made public. That deal, announced in October of last year, was between Trump Media & Technology Group and Digital World Acquisition Corporation, a venture capital company that reportedly had no idea at the time that Trump was involved.
The firm in question, called Rocket One Capital, had reportedly learned of the pending deal last summer. Sources said they then sought to find ways to make money off it. Those either currently or previously involved with the firm have denied such claims, including that they knew about the merger. But while the exact scope of the federal investigation is not yet known, Rocket One’s name has come up:
In the days before the Trump Media deal became public, there was a surge in trading in a type of security known as warrants, which entitled investors to buy shares of Digital World at a preset price in the future.
Federal prosecutors and regulators are now investigating the merger between Digital World and Trump Media, including the frenzied trading in the SPAC’s warrants, according to people familiar with the investigation and public disclosures. Digital World said in a recent regulatory filing that a federal grand jury in Manhattan had issued subpoenas seeking information about Rocket One, among other things.
Subpoenas, incidentally, tend to indicate that prosecutors are pursuing a criminal investigation.
After months of mostly not using his very own social media service, Trump finally, belatedly started posting, attempting to use it as he once used Twitter. That’s to say he’s used it to start fights, though it’s worth noting that some of them — like his recent beef with Elon Musk — had to be conducted over multiple services, because who’s even paying attention to Truth Social posts not written by its owner?
(Via NYT)