With all the other legal and financial headaches plaguing Donald Trump right now — including the possibility that he winds up in the slammer — one could be forgiven for forgetting about Truth Social. Launched early this year, it’s his rinky dink attempt at a Twitter clone, right down to the general design. But like many things Trump has touched over his long, rollercoaster career, it’s not doing so hot. It’s already behind on millions in bills. Now it might even cease to exist.
As per The Washington Post, Digital World Acquisition Corp., the company that teamed with Trump Media & Technology Group — and which helps keep Truth Social afloat — was supposed to vote Tuesday on a one-year extension of the merger. But that vote was suddenly delayed two days, so that shareholders have more time to respond. Reuters reported that they simply don’t have the votes:
If 65 percent of the company’s shareholders don’t approve the extension by Thursday, the company could be forced to liquidate, a potentially devastating blow that would leave Truth Social with nothing.
The company can postpone the merger for six months without shareholder approval, but its executives would need to invest millions to keep the company afloat. Some investment analysts have said they doubt that extension would give the company enough time to resolve all of the outstanding concerns about the merger.
Digital World’s stocks aren’t looking good. At its peak last October, after it launched, the special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, had shares of $175. On Tuesday, those shares had plummeted to under $21, or 90 percent of what it once was. Should the company liquidate, shareholders will get a mere $10 a share. What’s more, if Digital World liquidates, Trump’s company would not be able to access the $1.3 billion investment it’s been counting on to survive.
But guess who’s not nervous, at least not publicly? Trump. The former president is no stranger to exaggerating his fortunes (and fortune), and sure enough, on Saturday he was posting on his possibly doomed social media service that it was “doing really well.” As for if the Digital World vote could lead to its disappearance, he wasn’t worried: “In any event, I don’t need financing, ‘I’m really rich!’ Private company anyone???” (Trump’s habit of dropping random quotation marks seemed atypically sensible, considering he keeps begging his supporters for money he sometimes pockets.)
Trump also attempted a bit of buttering-up to Digital World shareholders before the vote that was then delayed, but that, too, may have been one of his bluffs. As The Post puts it:
On Tuesday, before the special meeting, Trump posted that the site is “doing amazing” and that it has become “the most engaged social media platform anywhere on the Internet!” In every measurement of online engagement, however — web traffic, downloads, follower counts — the site remains a tiny fraction of more mainstream sites and has fallen even from its launch six months ago. In the same post, Trump encouraged businesses to buy ads on the site.
But then, Trump isn’t always exactly tethered to reality.
(Via The Post)