I am now beginning to understand why Donald Trump doesn’t want to debate anybody. His latest entrepreneurial venture, Truth Social, is on its way to joining Trump Steaks. Trump Vodka, Trump Airlines, etc., ad infinitum, in the graveyard. The timing on this could not be better — or worse, if you happen to be Trump. Truth Social has enough money to run until summer, possibly into fall and then KABLOOM!
And it is going to be massively ugly. For a presidential candidate, even the supposedly Teflon, bullet proof Trump to have something this big blow, let alone in the fall runup to the 2024 caucuses, is going to be extraordinary to watch. And we have a front row seat.
Now if you listen to Devin Nunes and Donald Trump, everything is fine, just fine. Nunes said in an interview this month that the site is “blowing up the status quo,” and Trump said in a recent “truth” that it has allowed him to “get the word out like never before. As soon as I ‘speak’ on Truth, the WORD immediately spreads everywhere. MAGA!” Yes, Trump has a religious experience speaking “the WORD” everyday. Here’s yesterday’s proclamation about how wonderful it all is, “one of the most important ‘Voices’ in the Universe,” along with the ones Trump hears in his head.
We’ll do just that, we’ll watch, and here’s what we’re going to see. It may be a voice of universal significance to Trump but Truth Social is the 2,479th most popular website in the United States, according to Similarweb — viewed less often than the animal-news blog The Dodo, an AARP games webpage and, as Jimmy Kimmel noted on his late-night show, a website for photos of celebrities’ feet.
And the site is in trouble, bigly. It was a post-presidency brainstorm by two former Apprentice contestants and a guy named Will Wilkerson. The three met with Trump over cheeseburgers at Mar-a-Lago. Since then, Wilkerson has become a whistleblower to the SEC and currently works as a barista trainer at Starbucks for $16 an hour. Washington Post:
The early hype of Trump Media had made it into a financial blockbuster. An initial public offering raised $300 million for Digital World, while a group of private investors pledged another $1 billion. Investors had sent the stock price of the SPAC soaring to a high of $175 on the strength of its proposed merger with Trump Media. In September, shortly before Wilkerson’s firing, Forbes magazine had estimated that Trump’s stake in Trump Media was his “single most valuable asset,” worth roughly $730 million.
In the months since, the venture’s value has nosedived. Each Digital World share is now worth about $13. In a financial disclosure filing this month, as required by his new presidential candidacy, Trump said Trump Media was worth between $5 million and $25 million and that his income from it had been less than $200.
Not sure how you get less than $200 from an asset that’s worth at least $5 million but why split hairs. What we know is that Truth Social is not going to get to 50 million users by 2024. Not when it’s only a fraction of the way there in 2023. Truth Social’s global traffic last month fell to roughly 7 million visits, from it’s peak in August.
What’s going to happen, is that this is going to blow higher than Mt. Vesuvius, and Trump’s investors, many of whom are his supporters, are going to be left holding the bag.
Digital World said in an SEC filing Wednesday that it is cooperating with investigations by the SEC and the Department of Justice as well as an inquiry from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority related to events from before the SPAC declared its intention to merge with Trump Media in 2021. […]
With its Trump Media deal frozen by the pending investigation, Digital World blew through its initial one-year merger deadline, leading the SPAC to try and fail several times to schedule shareholder votes to extend the deadline. Without those votes, the SPAC was forced to borrow millions of dollars from its sponsor, ARC Global Investments II, to keep the deal afloat, SEC filings show.
In its filing this week, Digital World said it had accrued more than $17 million in debts by the end of last year, up from $480,000 at the end of 2021, and that its cash on hand had dropped from more than $327,000 to about $989.
Less than a thousand bucks. And going $16.5 million in debt in one year — which makes perfect sense if you are borrowing every month just to keep the lights on and Truth Social was. The man in charge, Patrick Orlando, was doing a kind of Ponzie scheme, staving off the inevitable and hoping that a miracle would occur. He was fired by the Board of Directors on March 19.
But this is the Voice of the Universe, folks. And here’s the death knell.
The SPAC also said it needed to complete the merger or seek further extensions by June 8 or its “existence will terminate,” in which case it would be required to return the money to shareholders. In a filing, the company said it “cannot assure shareholders that there will be sufficient funds” for the purpose of paying for its own liquidation costs or outstanding bills, and that the money in its trust account could “become subject to the claims of our creditors which would have higher priority than the claims of our public stockholders.”
Digital World’s unpaid debts could end up rolling onto the small-time, Trump-loving investors if the deal falls apart, said Michael Ohlrogge, a law professor at New York University who researches SPACs.
“The vast majority of SPACs just don’t rack up these kinds of expenses … and the shareholders could be in some danger of getting pursued by the unpaid vendors,” he said. “It could be an interesting and somewhat fitting end for Trump’s SPAC: that it ends in failure and liquidation and sticks its shareholders — presumably many or most of whom are his political supporters — with the bill.”
Now let me tell you what I see as the poetic beauty of this, the hand of God, if you will: No matter how much Trump screws up, the MAGAs don’t care. They believe him, that it’s all a political hit job. But this situation, the MAGA investors losing their money, they can’t blame on a political hit job — although I’m sure that’s exactly how Trump is going to paint it. No doubt in my mind. What Ma and Pa MAGA are going to know, when they lose their investment, is that their hero let them down. He failed. He’s a phony and a fraud. Some of Trump’s supporters from the past have woken up and getting hit in the pocketbook will wake up more.
And this is going to happen this year. Who knows? Ron DeSantis may ride this tragedy of Trump’s all the way to the top of the GOP ticket. It could happen. If there’s one thing we know about politics in this country nowadays, anything goes.
Trump knows this is happening and so far, this is the only reason I can find why Trump doesn’t want to debate anybody. He just wants to be on the GOP ticket, somehow get elected and then hide in the White House. Too bad it’s not going to happen that way. Although he may end up in a Big House where he will, in fact, be safe. That is possible. One with many doors.
Trump and ANOTHER failed business?
It’s the only thing he’s good at.
He is a veritable sage of How To Lose In Business. He truly could write the definitive treatise on the subject.
I don’t think Meatball Ron is going upwards. Nonirregardless of what happens to TFG I think Ronnie has pretty well crashed and burned. So it looks like both MAGA front-runners are in deep yogurt right now. Don’t touch that dial!
Get me some popcorn while you’re up?
Who does that leave? Does Mike Pence get the nomination by default? Or Nikki Haley?
Pence has been hoping for a spectacular Trump crash & burn. No matter. He’s got no more chance of getting the GOP nomination than I do. Haley? The very thing that once would have given her a chance with Independent voters (getting rid of the confederate themed flag at the SC Capitol) was pissed away when she gave up the oh so carefully crafted departure from the Trump administration with relatively little Trump stink attached to her – and tried to curry favor with Trump. Not to mention that flag business will be a HUGE liability with MAGAs who long ago abandoned old-school dog-whistle stuff and say the racist stuff out loud. Bluntly. What about others? Pompeo recently said no to running but might reconsider. However, while he played up his West Point credentials and military service well at the state level the spotlight of a Presidential campaign is another matter. He’s got a couple of equally appalling pals from his class that became players in the GOP but I get the sense West Pointers in general won’t be flocking to accounce suport for him. In fact, the opposite might happen.
Who does that leave? Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson maybe but he’s not all that compelling. And not nearly nasty enough to satisfy MAGA types. Larry Hogan, former Gov. of Maryland would actually make a good general election candidate which is the very thing that would prevent him from getting anywhere in the GOP primaries. No one else comes to mind other than the one Republican I actually fear might, if “drafted” join the fray. Jahn Kasich from Ohio. Given he’d be running against Biden the age issue for him would be neutralized and to RWNJ conservatives his extreme views are more than acceptable. What would make him dangerous is the quality that Trump so feared with Biden – he comes across as a likeable guy. And is masterful at taking the edge off his extremism.
We’ll see how this unfolds but if as you suggest the impending implosion of Truth Social takes down Trump before the court system does, DeSantis doesn’t have a chance no matter what polling might suggest at this point. It could be quite a show come next year.
Kasich is an interesting choice. I have not thought of him in ages. Larry Hogan or Asa Hutchinson would at least be “sane” Republican choices, throwbacks to a bygone, pre-MAGA era. I have no idea how they would fare.
We are so on terra incognita. You thought 2016 was wild? I see 2024 as being far more wild. It already is going in that direction and it’s not even mid-2023.
I forgot to mention Brian Kemp. He can play the “there was nothing I could do” card and maybe, possibly get away with it in the primaries. He’s a racist P.O.S. to be sure BUT he might be eyeing a way to appeal to swing/Independent voters if he can get the nomination. We’ll see (sadly, long before the primaries) how he handles the death of Jimmy Carter. That’s going to be a tough needle for him to thread – looking classy to honor a former President who was a Democrat while giving the wink & nod to the MAGAs. IF he can pull that off, then who knows? He could turn out to be a tougher opponent for Biden than you might think.
Kemp is very credible. He does have a nationally known name and he is credible for stopping the election madness in that state. However, I wonder how powerful ANY Republican is going to be in the event that both DeSantis and Trump get blown out of the water. The GOP is hardly going to look stable and sane, no matter what they do.
Could be Asa.
I wonder how much money the former guy has been pulling out of this grift, every month.
As for the investors – I think they were warned beforehand by just about everyone not in the cult.
You saw the statistic in the article. He claimed to get “less than $200” — how do you do that from an asset that’s worth $5 mil?
He believed it would be a cash cow – so he hired Nunes
This is going to be sooooo funny when it crashes and burns. Nunes will go psycho. Nunes may leave the country.
Cool. Ought to raise the country’s I.Q. average by at least a couple of points.
Maybe next time label it more wisely. A site of propaganda and nonstop lies shouldn’t have the word ‘Truth’ in its title. If there’s a God, this seems like the kind of evil that would reap His/Her wrath. Frumpy should read that upside down Bible. He would find his buddy, Satan, challenged the Almighty. The report is he now runs a great place for liars. In Hell. Baby Huey’s website will do better there.
Can you imagine when this goes belly up this summer? ESPECIALLY if the shareholders, his supporters, lose all kinds of money. Which they are on track to do. This is going to be most explosive Trump news since the FBI showed up at Mar-a-Lago.
Well, he only took after his Russian masters. Remember, the Soviet Union’s top propaganda weapon was “Pravda” (which translates to “truth”).
That was duly noted at the time. No irony there.
“… he may end up in a Big House where he will, in fact, be safe. That is possible. One with many doors.”
Well, that assumes that his SS minders form a protective wall around him wherever he goes (the Yard, the Laundry, the License Plate Shop, etc.).
In all seriousness, Trump could end up under house arrest with an ankle bracelet. I don’t know if he’ll ever go to prison. That’s too good to hope for.
Actually, in a sane world the convict would lose all of his ill gained “entitlements ” and would be forced to pay the governments legal costs.
Then we have those “3 strikes and you are out” rules that republiCLOWNS claim stop crime but apparently are not applied if your sister is a corrupt federal judge…
If their cash account is under $1000 they could fold immediately. No one is going to lend money to this operation unless they have some collateral, and there is none to be had. Meanwhile SEC is investigating several million that did make its way into the venture, which may have come from laundered Russian sources. That’s a potential criminal offense, and those involved in doing the deal may be facing a grand jury in a few months.
There’s so many levels where this could go sky high. This is very much like a Ponzie scheme. People who got in and got out at the right moment did okay. Everybody else is going to take a bath.
I think Putin and Trump thought this would be a good way to funnel money to him. Trump has done more to harm and kill Americans than Putin ever could with his pathetic army.
Khrushchev said it all back in the 50’s: We will take you over without firing a shot.
Truth Social (or is it “Truth” Social) was built to fail. I’m betting that his imminent rape conviction will trump (har, har) any new business meltdown. Can’t wait. E. Jean rocks.
Trump’s got a real conga line of catastrophes, both business and legal. When the Carroll verdict is over, that will be something. Far be it from me to predict juries but from everything I’ve read and heard, Carroll is most credible in her own defense.
So that trial will end, the social media website will explode and then what’s next? Georgia?
He is America’s 21st century hitler…
Nunez meant to say that he was blowing the status quo….for money
Just as he blows putin….