Nunes Is the Type Trump Would Have Fired On The Apprentice

Citadel Securities lit into Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes after he sent a letter to the Nasdaq that named Citadel Securities and a bunch of other major market companies after warning about possible illegal short selling of Trump Media shares.

A spokesperson for the telecommunications giant was less than complimentary in a stinging statement, noting that Trump Media stock has plummeted since it began public trading with the DJT sticker last month CNBC reports.

“devin nunes is the proverbial loser who tries to blame ‘naked short selling’ for his falling stock price.”

Citadel Securities founder and non-executive chairman, Ken Griffin, donates massive sums to Republican candidates — among them Nunes, formerly a GOP congressman. His company owns the Truth Social app. It’s safe to say Nunes may have shot himself in the foot here.

“Nunes is exactly the type of person donald trump would have fired on [the] apprentice,” added a citadel securities spokesperson, in reference to trump’s business competition reality show.

“if he [nunes] worked for citadel securities, we would fire him, as ability and integrity are at the center of everything we do,” the spokesperson explained.

But a Trump Media spokeswoman fired back with a statement that’s weirdly along the lines of “pot meet kettle.” Considering what Trump and his various companies have done. But that’s just me.

“citadel securities, a corporate behemoth that has been fined and censured for an incredibly wide range of offenses including issues related to naked short selling, and is world famous for screwing over everyday retail investors at the behest of other corporations, is the last company on earth that should lecture anyone on ‘integrity.'”

So did this spokeswoman and others at Trump Media forget that Trump was convicted of fraud under similar circumstances as head of the Trump Organization? These folks seem to have short memories.

But in a filing on Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Trump Media reported that it issued the above response on Truth Social and to other media outlets.

“rather than support our common sense efforts to promote transparency and compliance, citadel securities bizarrely targeted our ceo with an unhinged attack,” the company noted in the filing.

Nunes, in his letter to Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman, dated Thursday, which is also the same day that Trump media notified the SEC it had sent shareholders detailed information about how to avoid their DJT shares being used by short sellers who are placing bets that the price of the stock will continue its downward spiral.

Trump Media’s share price has risen sharply in the past three days, however, it is still trading considerably lower than its debut opening price on March 26. But Citadel Securities had a paltry $4.1 million in revenue last year, and its market capitalization has lost billions as a result of share prices dropping.

In his letter to Friedman, Nunes wrote, “I write to bring your attention to potential market manipulation of the stock Trump Media & Technology Group Corp.”

Nunes inferred that Trump Media’s price was used for naked short selling, a practice that involves traders selling shares of a company that, per CNBC “that the seller had not actually borrowed for that purpose.” He also said brokers had a “significant financial incentive to lend non-existent shares,” to short sellers because they have been able to charge unusually high premiums for loans of Trump media shares.

“Data made available to us indicate that just four market participants have been responsible for over 60 % of the extraordinary volume of DJT shares traded: citadel securities, virtu americas, g1 execution services, and jane street capital,” Nunes wrote.

Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, is the majority shareholder in Trump Media, with a stake of nearly 60%, CNBC reports.

Griffin is apparently no fan of the former president, having contributed $5 million to a political action committee that backed former South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley, who ran unsuccessfully against Trump for the GOP nomination.

Griffin also donated $5,800 to Nunes congressional campaign in September 2021, who subsequently reported three months later that he was resigning his seat to become Trump Media’s CEO, according to a filing from the Federal Election Commission filing. That’s a money is a mere drop in the bucket but it’s easy to see that Griffin could be a little bit miffed at Nunes for this.

And of course, shell companies are involved in all this nefarious trading. Citadel Advisors, an investment management firm also founded by Griffin, owned nearly 160,000 shares valued at $2.8 million as of December in Digital World Acquisition Corp., you guessed it—is a shell company that merged with Trump Media in March enabling Trump Media to begin being publicly traded.

Another Citadel spokesperson interviewed by CNBC was asked about that stake in DWAC, said “Consistent with our role as a market maker we often have some level of inventory for highly traded shares.

“The purpose is to facilitate trading for clients, not to take a directional bet one way or another,” that person said.

I know as much about all this money-changing as I do about Calculus. Which is to say I know nothing.

But I do know one thing: It sounds like Nunes should have been fired early on. It would have been fun to see him on The Apprentice. I bet he’d have lasted about two episodes.

This didn’t fail to catch the attention of Meidas Touch’s Ron Filipkowski, who couldn’t help but see the humor in the situation.

😂😂😂Poor Devin😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/anAjkHIO1J

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 20, 2024

And others joined in.

Citadel retracted it's claims saying Nunes was in fact "the limp slice of watery tomato on a bitch sandwich".

— Allen Saint (@AllenSaint4) April 20, 2024

And his stock options? Worthless. Even if TFG didn’t ace him out when it went public. Why am I always reminded of the scorpion and frog story?

— No Bull Causes ☮️ (@noble_causes) April 20, 2024