Donald Trump's Truth Social Goes Public

He's being called Don Corleone on social media, but Donald Trump's finances are about to get a big boost. Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, will likely become a publicly traded company this week following Digital World Acquisition Corp's approval of a merger last Friday. As we record this, Trump just got a lifeline for that judgment in his civil fraud case. The bond was reduced from $454 million to $175 million by the New York Appeals Court. Trump now has 10 days to post that bond. Um, I don't know why he gets a break, but... What do you think about this deal? The Trump Media and Technology Group has a market value of around $5 billion based on a $37 share price of Digital World Acquisition Corp. Tr- Trump owns 60%. His overall net worth will increase by about $3 billion. That said, you know, this is a meme stock no matter how you slice it. There's also a lockup provision in the merger agreement that would, in theory, prevent Trump from selling his shares for at least six months. He can, um... The lockup agreement could be waived by the board, which includes his son, um, his son, uh, Don Jr., Devin Nunes, the CEO, and Linda McMahon, who, who used to run WWE or whatever she did over there. Uh, they're all friends of. But if he sells, y- you know, the price will go down. If he sells, there's gonna be lawsuits aplenty. Um, it's obviously a meme stock or way to get... to funnel him money somehow. I'll say the l- last thing, two last things. DWAC, the SPAC that merged with, um, Trump's company was already a meme stock to start with. Um, as Fast Company put it, "Donald Trump's True Social could be the memiest meme stock that ever memed." And, uh, once again, Republican mega donor Jeff Yass was the biggest institutional shareholder of DWAC according to a report in the New York Times. He's also a major investor in TikTok's parent company ByteDance, as we discussed last week. Uh, I don't know. This is a just a... It feels like a lawsuit, like a securities lawsuit waiting to happen. But your thoughts, Scott. This is your area of expertise.

So, i- i- say you were running for president and you needed a bond of half a billion dollars and you knew someone who was the largest shareholder in TikTok and you said, "If I become president, I'll make sure it isn't banned," or whatever it is. Y- y- y- you could get someone by virtue of the White House. You could get them billions of dollars in shareholder value.

Yeah.

You met with them on a golf course and you said, "Oh, and by the way, there's a very small float in this SPAC that I have a large interest in. If you were just to throw, say, $10, $20, $30 million, maybe $50 million at this thing and keep the stock price elevated, that would make me very happy."