The new social media company set up by Former President Donald Trump is now under investigation by officials of the federal government.
Back in October, Trump unveiled the fact that he would be taking Trump Media & Technology Group and TRUTH Social, which is his new social media company, public via use of a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger. As reported by CNBC, however, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) have put forth a request for information “regarding stock trading and communications with Trump’s firm before the deal was announced.”
As reported by CNBC:
The investigations by the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority were disclosed in an 8-K filing with the SEC by Digital World Acquisition Corp., the special purpose acquisition company on track to merge with Trump Media & Technology Group…
The filing comes just two days after Trump Media & Technology Group and DWAC said the SPAC had reached agreements to obtain $1 billion in committed capital from a “diverse group of institutional investors” to be received when the merger is consummated. The identities of those investors in that so-called PIPE, or private investment in public equity, were not publicly disclosed.
In the wake of the filing, the stock prices of DWAC dropped by roughly 3%.
As released alongside his announcement in October, Trump talked about he was launching the Trump Media & Technology Group in order to “stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech.”
“We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced,” he stated. “This is unacceptable. I am excited to send out my first TRUTH on TRUTH Social very soon.”
“TMTG was founded with a mission to give a voice to all,” he stated. “I’m excited to soon begin sharing my thoughts on TRUTH Social and to fight back against Big Tech. Everyone asks me why doesn’t someone stand up to Big Tech? Well, we will be soon!”
The initial launch of Trump’s new venture is just a single mark of quite a few recent disruptions across the social media space.
This past week, Jack Dorsey, the longtime CEO of Twitter, issued an announcement that he would be stepping down from his position of leadership, which was almost instantly filed by Twitter’s CTO Parag Agrawal. The following day, Twitter unveiled that it would be taking steps to restrict the sharing of any videos or photos that did not receive explicit consent of the persons depicted.
Agrawal has been very vocal about its willingness to use Twitter’s power to enact extreme viewpoint discrimination. As stated to MIT’s technology review, Agrawal stated that Twitter does not have to be “bound by the First Amendment” and that any and all talk on the platform should be policed and censored in such a way to try and reflect what they are calling “how the times have changed.”
One other free speech social media network, Rumble, is also slated to go public soon. As stated by CEO Chris Pavlovski, the firm will be listed on the NASDAQ using the stock ticker CFVI in the wake of a SPAC merger.
“Rumble is creating the rails to a new infrastructure that will not be bullied by cancel culture,” Pavlovski stated. “We are a movement that does not stifle, censor, or punish creativity and freedom of expression. We believe everyone benefits when they have access to more ideas and diverse opinions.”
He concluded, “Being a public company will allow the people that believe in our mission to invest and join us as we seek to restore a free and open internet.”
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