The finance company which has pledged to merge with the majority Donald Trump-owned startup behind his Truth Social media platform has seen its stock price fall by 5 percent in pre-market trading after the former president returned to X, formerly Twitter.
Shares of the Digital World Acquisition Corporation (DWAC)—which facilitates mergers, acquisitions and stock purchases—saw a sudden decline from a $13.93 closing price on Thursday to a $13.36 low shortly after the Nasdaq exchange in New York City opened on Friday morning. It has since recovered somewhat and as of 10 a.m. ET was trading around $13.77.
Trump returned to X after a more than two-year hiatus from the social media platform on Thursday evening, to post a link to a fundraising website for his election campaign along with a picture of his mugshot taken while he was arrested in Georgia earlier in the day.
The former president’s team has looked to capitalize on the image, selling merchandise featuring the mugshot as well as soliciting campaign donations beneath a message claiming the criminal charges lodged against him were “a travesty of justice” and “ELECTION INTERFERENCE” on his website.
STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Trump had been banned from the platform—which he had regularly used to communicate with his supporters—in the wake of the January 6, 2021, uprising on the U.S. Capitol, but had resisted a return when the account was reinstated in November after Elon Musk bought Twitter.
A month prior, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), which owns the Truth Social platform, and DWAC had announced a merger agreement that would combine the two companies. Reuters reported that the deal would give the new entity $1.3 billion in cash.
However, a series of issues has delayed that merger, leading to a number of extensions to that agreement being completed—in the latest, DWAC set a deadline of December 31 this year.
The initial agreement between the two companies had exclusivity clauses which stipulated that for 18 months from December 22, 2021—a period that expired a little over a month ago—Trump had to first post on Truth Social six hours before he could replicate the post on another social media site, SEC filings show.
Since then, neither company has announced an extension to the exclusivity pact, but SEC filings show even after it expired, he is still bound to use Truth Social contemporaneously to other sites, suggesting he is unlikely to desert the social media platform altogether.
However, a return to posting on X may prompt many of those who signed up to Truth Social to continue hearing from him to flock back to the Musk-run social network. The former president has 86.9 million followers on X compared to only 6.39 million on Truth Social, a platform a financial disclosure of his in April revealed made him less than $201.
Newsweek approached DWAC via email for comment on Friday.
Trump surrendered himself for arrest at Fulton County Jail in Atlanta on Thursday evening after being indicted with 13 criminal counts relating to an alleged conspiracy between him and 18 others to unlawfully change the election results in the state in 2020.
Trump was released on a $200,000 bond and later described the arrest to Newsmax as “a very sad day for our country.” He denies any wrongdoing and has accused prosecuting Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis of being overwhelmingly partisan.