Shareholders voted Friday to take former president Donald Trump’s media company public, a long-delayed move that will open the owner of Truth Social to stock-market investors and grant Trump a stake worth billions of dollars.
The vote Friday by investors in Digital World Acquisition authorized the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, to merge with Trump Media & Technology Group as part of a process that will avoid a more traditional public offering.
Trump will own about 60 percent of the company, which at Digital World’s current share price would be worth about $3.3 billion. He and other investors could earn tens of millions more shares through an “earnout” provision tied to the stock’s performance, Digital World said in an SEC filing.
But a lockup provision in the merger agreement will prevent Trump and other major shareholders from selling their shares for six months unless he is granted a waiver by the post-merger company’s board.
That could limit Trump’s ability to use the windfall to help pay off the hundreds of millions of dollars he owes in legal judgments. Trump does not have the cash to secure a bond that would delay enforcement of the $464 million judgment in a New York fraud case, his lawyers said.
If he does not post a bond by Monday, the New York attorney general could move to seize his bank accounts, real estate and other assets.
Read more here from The Washington Post.
