Will Wilkerson, then an executive at former president Donald Trump’s start-up Trump Media & Technology Group, was at a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., coffee shop with company co-founder Andy Litinsky last October when Trump called Litinsky with a question: Would he give up some of his shares to Trump’s wife, Melania?
Trump Media, the owner of the fledgling social network Truth Social, had just been boosted by a huge merger agreement and a flood of investment that had made the stake worth millions of dollars. Trump had already been given 90 percent of the company’s shares in exchange for the use of his name and some minor involvement, leaving everyone else to split the rest.
WaPo
And Litinsky did not say, "Give her some of YOURS, fucker."
Litinsky tried to brush it off, telling Trump “the gift would have meant a huge tax bill he couldn’t pay,” Wilkerson said in an interview. “Trump didn’t care. He said, ‘Do whatever you need to do.’ ”
And what you need to do is give Melania some of your shares.
Five months later, Litinsky, who first met Trump in 2004 as a contestant on the TV show “The Apprentice,” was abruptly removed from the company’s board. Wilkerson said he believes it was payback for his refusal to turn over a small fortune to the former president’s wife.
You think?
[An] email — one of hundreds of previously unreported company messages, documents, photos and audio recordings that Wilkerson has provided to the SEC in connection with a whistleblower submission — reveals a stunning portrait of the animosity that has built up inside Trump Media since its high-profile debut last year.
[...]
Trump’s umbrella company, the Trump Organization, disputed a long-signed agreement between the start-up and Trump himself, demanding more control over how Trump’s likeness would be used, Wilkerson said. And Trump’s adult sons — Donald Jr. and Eric — began asking for large stakes in the company, Wilkerson said, even though they had been almost entirely uninvolved.
“They were coming in and asking for a handout,” Wilkerson said. “They had no bearing in this company … and they were taking equity away from hard-working individuals.”
[...]
[Log] entries also show the men growing accustomed to dealing with Trump’s sudden reversals and rage. On Sept. 23, 2021, the log records cite Litinsky saying, “President trump calls me in morning to yell at me because don jr is upset.” The next day, “Don jr calls Wes and yells at him.” On Oct. 12, “djt calls in crazy mood and he tries to renegotiate the entire deal … don jr walks in room and wants to get paid.” On Oct. 30: “djt is pissed.”
So unlike the Trump family!
Wilkerson, who was fired from his job Thursday as a senior vice president of operations at the company after he spoke to The Post, filed the whistleblower complaint with the SEC in August. The complaint, drafted by Wilkerson’s attorneys, alleges that the company’s bid to raise money via an investment vehicle known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, relied on “fraudulent misrepresentations … in violation of federal securities laws.”
Like every other venture Trump puts his hands on.
Wilkerson is cooperating with investigations into Trump Media by the SEC and federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York.
[...]
In an SEC filing in December, Digital World Acquisition, the SPAC that is pushing to take Trump Media public, acknowledged that the SEC was investigating and had sought documents related to the merger with Trump Media. In another filing in June, Digital World said it had become aware that a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York had issued subpoenas to its board members seeking documents related to its initial public offering filings and “communications with or about multiple individuals.” The investigations, the company said, could “impede or prevent” the merger.
[...]
Trump Media fired Wilkerson on Thursday, citing his “unauthorized disclosures” to The Post. Brewster, his attorney, called the termination “patent retaliation against an SEC whistleblower of the worst kind.”
[...]
Digital World — with help from its sponsor, Arc Capital, an investment firm based in Shanghai — has paid roughly $3 million to give itself until Dec. 8 to finish the merger. The company has delayed shareholder meetings three times, including earlier this week, without announcing whether it has received approval for an extension from the required 65 percent of shareholders.
[...]
Investors, discouraged by the halted merger, have sent the SPAC’s share price plunging from a high of $175 to less than $18 on Friday. Roughly 4 million users follow Trump on the company’s sole product, Truth Social — far below his Twitter peak of 88 million. The company has pledged to investors it would surpass 50 million total users by 2024.
Hard to believe Trump ventures still get investors.
Continue reading this article for the story of how the Truth Social enterprise got its quasi-illicit beginnings, including this tidbit:
“We have to be very smart. Obviously, we can talk hypothetically about if there were another vehicle,” at which point Litinsky cuts him off. Later, Orlando says, “We’ll make some magic happen.”
[...]
[T]he men were so stunned by the suggestion of something they believed to be improper that they wondered whether it was a government setup or if Orlando had been wearing a secret recording device.
[...]
Digital World Acquisition has asked shareholders to give the company more time to finalize the merger, which would unlock hundreds of millions of dollars for Trump Media but is effectively frozen pending the outcomes of the federal investigations.
[...]
Trump has also undermined confidence in the deal, saying in a Truth Social post last month that he may just end up skipping out on the SPAC deal and taking the venture private because he’s “really rich.”
And I guess the rubes still believe it.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
