Politics - News Analysis

‘Makes Me Want to Throw Up’: Key Investors Pull Out of New Trump Social Media Company Over ‘Values’

On Wednesday evening we reported that Donald Trump announced that he was starting a new social media platform but for the first time, of which we’re aware, it was to be a corporation partly owned by shareholders (of which he would be a major one) and largely financed through market capitalization. It was a radical departure from his normal and usual way of doing business but likely this was his only option due to his lack of liquidity.

Now, at least two of the major shareholders are pulling out of the investment because they were unaware of the fact that Trump was driving the train.

As Mazza reports, “Boaz Weinstein’s Saba Capital had been a major investor in Digital World, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) formed for the purpose of acquiring another company. As is common in SPAC arrangements, investors put their cash in before the acquisition target was chosen. When Weinstein learned it would be with Trump’s firm, he bailed.”

Typical Silicon Valley business model, someone announces a decent-sized small fish idea. It has some success, a larger company buys it prior to or even after it goes public. The larger company manages and grows the company until it becomes really successful. At that point, one of the largest companies buys it in order to keep some sort of monopoly Here, it seems like one of the critical investors got out before the company even became a small fish.

Another unnamed investor, who reportedly held a 10 percent stake in the company, was considerably more graphic when talking about being taken in by Trump’s latest venture and he “sold everything as soon as he could,” reports Mazza.

“The idea that I would help Trump build out a fake news business called Truth makes me want to throw up,”

It sounds like Trump had others, perhaps some venture capitalists, pitch an idea that sounded good, a real spot for conservatives to land, not little Parler or the other stupid ones, a real one, one backed by real money.

The moment they heard it was a Trump project, big investors got out, fast, perhaps threatening the entire ability to build the initial company.

It sure looks like it will be another Trump business fail, this time before he lost a lot of money, but only because hid his role altogether.

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[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak

meet the author

Jason Miciak is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is originally from Canada but grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He now enjoys life as a single dad raising a ridiculously-loved young girl on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He is very much the dreamy mystic, a day without learning is a day not lived. He is passionate about his flower pots and studies philosophical science, religion, and non-mathematical principles of theoretical physics. Dogs, pizza, and love are proof that God exists. "Above all else, love one another."

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