Forbes
@forbes·2.1M subscribers·11.3K videos
Trump’s New Social Media Company Is Taking On Big Tech | Forbes
Posted
December 7, 2021
Views
85,812
Likes
1,877
Comments
527
Engagement
2.80%
December 7, 2021
85,812
1,877
527
2.80%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
2:36Now PlayingThe Trump Media and Technology Group hasn’t done much yet. Investors still seem to think it’s worth about four times as much as everything else Donald Trump owns.
It was just revealed that authorities are probing Donald Trump’s new social media venture, which has ambitions to launch a Twitter knockoff and other businesses, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing released Monday.
In late October and early November, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority requested information about trading that occurred before the Trump Media and Technology Group announced plans to go public via a special purpose acquisition company, or a SPAC.
The Securities and Exchange Commission also asked about several matters. For instance, the SEC requested information about communications between the SPAC and the Trump Media and Technology Group. Why might the SEC be interested in such a thing? In September, the SPAC claimed in an SEC filing that there had been no “substantive discussions, directly or indirectly, with any business combination target with respect to an initial business combination,” but a month later, the New York Times reported that the SPAC’s chief executive had in fact been talking about a possible deal with Trump since at least March.
The SEC also asked about the identities of certain investors. Even though there are billions of dollars riding on the venture, it remains unclear who exactly has a stake in it. Donald Trump is considered the chairman of the Trump Media and Technology Group, and a merger agreement referred to him as the “company principal.” But it’s still unclear exactly what percentage of the business he owns. In addition, the venture announced a $1 billion deal on Saturday to bring in new investors, without naming who those investors are.
Neither FINRA nor the SEC said it had determined that anyone had violated the law, according to the filing released Monday. Representatives of the Trump Organization and the SPAC did not respond to requests for comment.
To watch more on the company valuation
Read the full story on Forbes
Subscribe to FORBES
Stay Connected
Forbes newsletters
Forbes on Facebook
Forbes Video on Twitter
Forbes Video on Instagram
More From Forbes
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
