‘Meltdown day’: Truth Social founders scrambled to keep Trump from defecting from troubled app
According to the Washington Post, Donald Trump once considered bailing on his Truth Social start-up after being offered another social media deal, but stuck around much to his dismay now.
The report documents a meeting the former president had in 2021 where he met with the creators of what became the now beleaguered Trump-centric social media site, as he also pondered a competing offer from a former White House adviser with a $5 million a year promise.
As the Post's Josh Dawsey and Drew Harwell wrote, "The co-founders of former president Donald Trump’s post-presidential start-up, Trump Media & Technology Group, had a name for June 11, 2021: 'meltdown day," regarding their Trump face-to-face.
The two men, Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, were linked to the former president by his reality TV show "The Apprentice," to pitch, "a web of conservative-aimed business ventures, including the Twitter clone Truth Social."
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According to the Post, "In late June, Moss, Litinsky and Wilkerson traveled to Trump Tower in New York to demonstrate a Truth Social prototype for Trump and his adult sons, Eric and Donald Jr. The men compiled a presentation showing off company milestones, including the raising of millions of dollars in private investment and the installation of key personnel for Trump’s company, according to a copy of the document."
However, at the same time, Trump was pondering a competing deal being offered by former aide Jason Miller who was promising the $5 million a year as well as a stake in the company.
After a flurry of activity by the people behind Trump Media & Technology, including a lawyer who wrote "The elimination of DJT’s ‘exclusive’ commitment to [Trump Media group’s] product offering essentially renders the TMG initiative ‘un-bankable,' ” the former president was convinced to stay the course and now he finds himself the object of both scrutiny and ridicule as Truth Social flounders and a possible collapse would add to the long list of Trump-related business ventures that were spectacular flops.
According to the Post, Elon Musk's recent game-changing takeover of Twitter has some close to Trump wondering if he'll call it quits now -- which would likely hasten a full collapse.
However, as the report states, the former president may be stuck over fears the bad publicity should he take a walk on the financially troubled venture.
"Trump has told his allies that he can’t leave Truth Social, because he’s propping it up, and he doesn’t want a site so closely associated with his brand to collapse, according to people familiar with his thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters," the Post is reporting.
As for the current status of Truth Social, the Post is reporting, "Trump Media committed last year to merge with a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, named Digital World Acquisition, to which investors have given roughly $300 million in operating funds. But Trump Media cannot unlock that money without a merger that has been frozen by ongoing federal investigations. The announcement of a shareholder vote to extend the company’s merger deadline has been postponed six times in the past two months, most recently on Thursday, an indication that the SPAC still does not have the votes it needs to seal the deal. Liquidation of the SPAC is scheduled for Dec. 8 if the extension still has not been passed, zeroing out Trump Media’s biggest financial base."
"Trump Media’s co-founders were ousted earlier this year after Trump signed a surprise document shaking up the company, knocking Litinsky off the board of directors and adding his son Donald Jr. and the company’s chief executive, former representative Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). Other executives left shortly after," the report adds.
You can read more here.
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