The landing of Donald Trump in the business of communication with the company Trump Media & Technology has triggered the listing on the Stock Market of Digital World Acquisition Corp, the instrumental company of special purpose acquisition (SPAC, in its English acronym) with which it is has merged, and is listed on the Nasdaq, the US stock index of large technology. SPACs are companies created in order to raise sufficient capital to carry out a merger or acquisition with an existing one, listed or not, or for any future purchase opportunity. With the SPAC as a crutch, Trump aspires to declare media war on the Democrats and the big tech companies of Silicon Valley, who in January deprived him of his favorite pulpit: his accounts on the social networks Twitter and Facebook, which he sued. by censorship.
The shares of the aforementioned SPAC have soared 350%, largely due to the operations of supporters of the former president. At the opening of the Wall Street session, this Friday, the value was trading 95% higher, while on Thursday it was multiplied by more than four, from $ 10 per share to 45.50, after the announcement of the agreement with Trump’s startup, which plans to launch a Twitter-like platform called Truth Social. The rise in the value of Digital World shares is unusual even for SPACs, whose shares tend to swing wildly, according to the newspaper. The Wall Street Journal.
Trump’s media company, which Digital World values at $ 875 million, including debt, was unveiled on Wednesday after announcing the merger with SPAC. Its website asks potential users to sign up for a waiting list. Trump Media plans a tentative launch next November and a full takeoff in the first quarter of 2022, in time for the November mid-term election campaign, in which Republicans aspire to seize control of both Houses.
But not everything is luck for the SPAC. At least one of the main supporters of the listed company has withdrawn from the fund due to the merger with the Republican. It is about hedge fund mogul and manager Boaz Weinstein, who on Thursday ordered the sale of all the unrestricted shares that his company owned in Digital World. Hours later, the value of the SPAC soared, significantly cutting its profit. Weinstein said in a statement that he was convinced that he had done the right thing, to “maintain values” that Trump’s contiguity would not guarantee. Weinstein is a veteran Democratic donor who last year supported the campaign of Joe Biden, now President of the United States.
A permanent presence
Trump, a permanent social media presence during his presidency, was looking for a new home online since he was permanently expelled from Twitter, and from Facebook for two years, after the assault on the Capitol, last January. As a result of the virtual gag, on the Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Pinterest platforms, mentions about the Republican plunged by up to 95% between January and early June, according to The Washington Post. At the beginning of May he published a personal blog, titled From the office of Donald J. Trump, but it had little success and closed a month later, while at the same time having conversations with several platforms to find accommodation. Until this week he made the leap into the media business.
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But many on Wall Street, like Weinstein, prefer to distance themselves from the Republican after the serious events in January, which are the subject of a congressional investigation partially hampered by Trump. Investment funds have become increasingly strict on environmental, social and corporate governance issues, and some have even adopted so-called “socially responsible investing” as the central guideline of their business strategy. The association with Trump, as blessed as it may be on Wall Street, implies a degree of toxicity for large corporations and for Wall Street, especially after the insurrection of his followers on Capitol Hill. “Some investors would rather drink rat slaughter than identify with Trump,” Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan, told the newspaper. The New York Times. Others, on the other hand, do not seem willing to put ethical values before profit.
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