“I LOVE TRUTH SOCIAL,” Donald Trump announced over the weekend on Truth Social, the social media platform he launched to fight leftist censorship of conservative ideas.
Investors in Digital World Acquisition Corp. are likely feeling the same way Monday as the company’s share price rose by more than 15 percent.
DWAC is the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, that was set up to acquire Trump Median & Technology Group (TMTG), the owner of the social media platform Truth Social. On Friday, shareholders voted to approve the deal.
Shares of the merged company are expected to begin publicly trading this week under the ticker symbol DJT.
The transaction would provide a windfall to Trump, who owns more than 60 percent of TMTG. His share of the merged company, expected to be around a 58 percent stake, could be worth around $3 billion at recent market prices.
Trump’s shares are subject to a six-month lock-up that would prevent him from selling shares or pledging them as collateral for loans, a standard provision in many initial public offerings and SPAC deals. The board, however, could waive the lock-up to allow him to pledge his shares to support an appeal bond in the fraud judgment against him in New York.
A New York appeals court on Monday agreed to give Trump an additional 10 days to post the appeals bond and reduced the amount he must post from the full $454 million judgment to $175 million. The court’s decision will mean that any attempt by New York Attorney General Letitia James to seize Trump’s property to enforce the judgment will be put on hold.
