Truth Social, the social media company owned by Donald Trump, is merging with Digital World Acquisition Corp
The deal is said to be worth $5.7 billion
This money could help Trump wiggle out of his costly legal battles. One fraud lawsuit alone is costing him $454 million dollars
Truth Social, a social media platform backed by former US president Donald Trump, is finally heading for a merger worth $5.7 billion.
The news came in on Friday when the shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corp (a publicly traded company) voted in favor of the merger.
The merged company will also be renamed as Trump Media & Technology Group.
The biggest beneficiary of this will be Trump who will at least 58% of the company at an expected value of $3.3 billion.
This merger also means that Truth Social will soon be debuting on the Nasdaq stock market. That’s because when a publicly traded company merges with a private company, the latter takes its place in the stock market after the transaction is approved by the shareholders.
Problems in the Deal
Instead of having stable institutional investors, the company has a lot of small investors who are either a fan of Trump or extremely excited about the merger. They have managed to double the stock prices of the company within a year – from $17.45 to $36.94.
However, recent activity shows that Digital World’s stock market journey has been quite bumpy. The stock has fallen around 25.64% in the last six months. The last trading day (22nd March) also saw a 13.71% fall in its price – right after the news of the merger.
Another problem with this merger is that Digital World has quite a few legal worries of its own. There are a handful of unresolved lawsuits plus an $18 million settlement that the company agreed to pay to settle fraud charges about this very merger.
On top of that, Digital World’s former CEO Patrick Orlando, and former business associates of Trump, Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, have separately sued for more shares.
The company’s own financial health isn’t doing great at the moment. All that we know is in the first 9 months, it lost $10.6 million from its operations and only managed a revenue of $3.4 million. Since then, it has been running on borrowed funds through convertible promissory notes worth $40.7 million.
What Does Trump Gain From The Deal?
Despite the few drawbacks, this merger couldn’t have come at a better time because Trump is dealing with his own legal issues that are costing him a fortune. For instance, he has to tackle a $454 million lawsuit filed against him for fraud in the New York court.
However, it’s hard to say if he will be able to use this money to pay off his legal fees. Usually, internal members of a company have to go through a lock-in period of 6 months during which they are not allowed to sell their shares.
Unless the board considers Trump’s predicament and decides to switch up the rules, he won’t be able to cash out his shares.
Plus, owing to the terms of an agreement he signed, he cannot even take a loan against these shares. The only hope is that he manages to stay afloat for the next 6 months and then take out a loan or sell his shares.
It will be interesting to see if this deal can turn around Trump’s financial fortunes.
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