Former President Donald Trump recently received great news regarding his social media platform Truth Social. A shareholder vote of the “blank check” company trying to merge with Trump Media & Technology Group just gave the entities more time to finalize a merger.
Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) is attempting to merge with Trump’s company in order to take Truth Social public. According to an Axios article, Trump would have to seek alternative funding sources if the vote failed. Fortunately, the deadline has been extended another 12 months thanks to the vote.
“Had the shareholder vote failed, DWAC would have liquidated and Trump would have needed to find another deep pocket,” Axios stated. “DWAC had launched a major lobbying effort in recent weeks to secure the vote, including sending emails to all Truth Social users (even if they weren’t shareholders).”
“This doesn’t necessarily mean the merger will close — providing Truth Social with hundreds of millions of dollars — but it’s much more likely now than it was just 24 hours ago,” Axios wrote.
Since its launch, Truth Social has had a tumultuous relationship with the legacy media. For example, the platform filed a massive defamation lawsuit against the Washington Post in May.
Truth Social is seeking over $3.7 billion from the newspaper over allegations of money laundering and alleged acceptance of money from “Russian ties”. The lawsuit states:
“On March 15, 2023, the Guardian published an online article entitled “Federal investigators examined Trump Media for possible money laundering, sources say”. (the “Guardian Article”). The Guardian Article contained false statements and defamatory implications, including that Federal investigators had examined TMTG “for possible money laundering”; that “New York prosecutors expanded criminal inquiry of company last year and examined acceptance of $8m with suspected Russian ties”; and that “Federal prosecutors in New York involved in the criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s social media company last year started examining whether it violated money laundering statutes in connection with the acceptance of $8m with suspected Russian ties”.”
According to the lawsuit, the alleged source of the claims against Truth Social was a former employee who had been terminated. Apparently, this individual was motivated to peddle these fake claims to leftist media outlets seeking to run headlines attacking Trump’s platform.
“The source of the Guardian’s false and defamatory “money laundering” charges was a former employee of TMTG, Will Wilkerson (“Wilkerson”), who was terminated for cause. Beginning in 2022, separate and apart from any purported disclosures he may have made to the government, Wilkerson began to concoct and publicly shop false stories about TMTG to numerous media outlets.”
The lawsuit further claims that Wilkerson also made false allegations that Trump Media & Technology Group regarding relationships with a “porn-friendly” bank and securities fraud.
The suit continues, claiming the Washington Post “published an egregious hit piece that falsely accused TMTG of securities fraud and other wrongdoing” and “has been on a years-long crusade against TMTG characterized by the concealment of relevant information in its possession. WaPo’s false criminal charges exposed TMTG to public ridicule, contempt, and distrust, and injured TMTG’s business and reputation.”
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