Amazing Trump Truth Social SPAC
In the United States, long-time conspiracy theorists speculated that Super Bowl performer Taylor Swift may back Joe Biden using her massive fan base. After a record-breaking year of ticket and album sales, Ms. Swift was widely believed to have the highest net worth of any celebrity in the world—$1.1 billion—until Donald J. Trump knocked her down to second place.
The former president of the United States and current legal celebrity, Mr. Trump, had a gain of roughly $5 billion in his net worth last week. Last week, under the ticker symbol DJT, Mr. Trump’s social-media platform, Truth Social, joined with a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC), called Digital World. This merger brought him a windfall.
At the end of the day, the Trump Media & Technology Group was worth almost $8 billion, despite having only generated $5 million in sales since its establishment in 2021. Mr. Trump’s share gain in a day was over $4.5 billion, as he is 57% owner of the corporation. Dazzling.
Swiftians could argue that her fortune is the result of profit from businesses in the conventional sense, while Mr. Trump’s Truth Social site has been losing money up to this point. At this point in time, who gives a damn? Numerous for-profit businesses whose original exorbitant valuations were based primarily on the expectation that they would generate a profit populate the investing world and its burial grounds.
There is some variation in Trump’s play.
An rising reality is confirmed by Mr. Trump’s financial pyrotechnics. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Matt Gaetz are just a few of the influencers who have found the money and power in appealing to the masses through social media.
If Mr. Trump is elected president of the United States, the assets in his SPAC will continue to grow. Everything goes down the drain if he loses. Following the announcement that the firm had almost no cash on hand at the end of last year, the stock dropped 21% on Monday, erasing around $1 billion of Mr. Trump’s holdings. This week, the stock price made a small recovery.
Knight Specialty Insurance Co. chairman Don Hankey described it as a business decision, but he still considers himself a Trump supporter. Mr. Trump was able to secure a $175 million bond from the company, which he owes to New York State in his civil-fraud trial, thanks to the early success of trading in his nearly cashless social media company.
Therefore, “Trump” is now a stock market play as well as a political one. Many of the donors who poured money into Trump’s offering were certainly contributing to his campaign in other ways, regardless of their financial expectations. Truth Social is a political meme stock, similar to the GameStop fad of the pandemic, where members care more about finding a community of like-minded people than they do about making money.
Mr. Trump has previously relied on mass emails soliciting small donations from his base, often mentioning his legal difficulties, in order to fund his campaign. Trump supporters may now donate money to their men and maybe receive it back if the DJT ticker company doesn’t go bankrupt.
Those politically-motivated investors of Mr. Trump’s probably won’t care if they lose money—and they will lose a lot of money if he asks the board of directors—mostly friends and family—to shorten the usual six-month holding period before he can sell shares to pay his legal fees.
If Mr. Trump were to reclaim the presidency for a fourth term, how would that impact the stock price of his media and technology company? Is it possible that the value of the company could be affected by the approval ratings of President Trump, which are influenced by his actions or rumored decisions about tariffs, Ukraine, China, and Russia? It is hard to believe that Mr. Trump would encrypt or place Truth Social in a trust. His presidency was inseparable from the public’s consumption of his late-night Twitter tweets. If President Trump can increase his following through fabricated or actual presidential scandals, Truth Social could be a game-changer.
Many high-valuation businesses fail to turn a profit, but none of them rely on the actions of just one person as much as Elon Musk’s firms. Sports betting has grown commonplace, but this week, Charlie Baker, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, pushed for a prohibition of betting on individual collegiate players’ performances in individual games. Mr. Trump would be able to use the financial indicator that he values—the daily share price of Truth Social—to validate his presidency.
For Democrats, these theoretical disagreements can seem like ammunition against Trump. His political opponents, on the other hand, will probably try to figure out how to reap the same golden eggs that Mr. Trump has found (a tragic tale of avarice). Independent political action groups currently allow politicians to receive an unrestricted amount of campaign funding. SPAC and PAC rhyme. Still, the Trump jackpot provides Democrats with fresh motivation to unseat him and bring his incredible fortune to a halt. Disregard the seizure of Letitia James’s property. Now that’s nothing.
The start of the baseball season has brought up yet another reason to discard Joe Biden. Mr. Biden exemplifies the bloodless statistics of Moneyball, while Donald Trump’s SPAC exemplifies the strength of belief investing. According to the polls, Mr. Biden is no longer able to strike the curve. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket for a president who can’t even beat the Four Billion Dollar Man in the market.
