According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing announced on October 20, 2021, Trump Media and Technology Group and Digital World Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: DWAC)
have entered into a definitive merger agreement, providing for a business combination that will result in Trump Media and Technology Group becoming a publicly listed company, subject to regulatory and stockholder approval.
The transaction values Trump Media and Technology Group at an initial enterprise value of $875 Million, with a potential additional earnout of $825 Million in additional shares (at the valuation they are granted) for a cumulative valuation of up to $1.7 Billion depending on the performance of the stock price post-business combination. Trump Media and Technology Group’s growth plans initially will be funded by DWAC’s cash in trust of $293 Million (assuming no redemptions).
Trump Media and Technology Group's mission is to create a rival to the liberal media consortium and fight back against the "Big Tech” companies of Silicon Valley, which have used their unilateral power to silence opposing voices in America.
Trump Media and Technology Group (“TMTG”) will soon be launching a social network, named "TRUTH Social." TRUTH Social is now available for Pre-Order in the Apple App store. TRUTH Social plans to begin its Beta Launch for invited guests in November 2021. A nationwide rollout is expected in the first quarter of 2022. Those who are interested in joining TRUTH Social may now visit www.truthsocial.com to sign up for the invite list.
Former President Donald J. Trump, the Chairman of TMTG, stated, “I created TRUTH Social and TMTG to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech. We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced. This is unacceptable. I am excited to send out my first TRUTH on TRUTH Social very soon. TMTG was founded with a mission to give a voice to all. I'm excited to soon begin sharing my thoughts on TRUTH Social and to fight back against Big Tech. Everyone asks me why doesn’t someone stand up to Big Tech? Well, we will be soon!”
Patrick F. Orlando, Chairman/CEO of DWAC, stated, "Digital World was formed to create public shareholder value and we believe that TMTG is one of the most promising business combination partners to fulfill that purpose. DWAC currently has $293 Million in trust, assuming minimal redemptions, which can fuel TMTG’s scale up, including to provide world class leading technology services to build strong and secure social networks and diverse media offerings. Given the total addressable market and President Trump’s large following, we believe the TMTG opportunity has the potential to create significant shareholder value.”
Additionally, TMTG intends to launch a subscription video on demand service (TMTG+). TMTG+ will feature 'non-woke' entertainment programming, news, podcasts, and more. TMTG has named Scott St. John as the leader of TMTG+ Corporate Operations. Scott St. John is the Executive Producer of “Deal or No Deal’ and “America’s Got Talent” and has produced over 1,000 hours of Network and Cable TV.
Please visit TMTG’s corporate website at www.tmtgcorp.com for a Company Overview, and a video tour of TRUTH Social.
As CNBC explained, Digital World Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: DWAC) is a “a special purpose acquisition company” or SPAC. SPACs, also known as blank-check companies, are created to raise capital in the public equities markets, with the goal of using the cash to purchase or merge with private firms.
Thus, Trump’s new social media company, Trump Media and Technology Group, through its merger with DWAC, will become a publicly listed company.
Yesterday, former President Donald J. Trump issued a lengthy statement explaining the establishment of The Trump Media and Technology Group:
Last week, I announced the creation of a major new company that will challenge the dominance of the Big Tech giants and Big Media bosses. Today I want to explain more about what I am doing and why. For me, this endeavor is about much more than politics. This is about saving our country.
America has always been a nation of smart, spirited, and independent people who take pride in thinking for themselves. We admire those who aren’t afraid to speak their minds, or go against the tide. Yet suddenly, we find ourselves being censored and dictated to by a small group of self-righteous scolds and self-appointed arbiters of what everyone else is allowed to think, say, share, and do.
Nowhere is this censorship more dangerous and brazen than on social media, the public square of our times. We have seen renowned medical doctors being banned from platforms for contradicting “health authorities” or questioning the political narrative of the moment. We’ve seen scientists blacklisted for sharing evidence that the pandemic began in a Chinese lab. We’ve seen vital reporting about Joe and Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings—information that voters needed and deserved to hear—ruthlessly suppressed and erased from the internet just weeks before a presidential election. And as everyone knows, we’ve seen a sitting president of the United States effectively silenced by a small oligarchy of tech titans and “mainstream” media corporations.
The corruption of these platforms cannot be ignored. We have fallen far down the “slippery slope” of censorship in our country, and the topics that Americans are increasingly forbidden to debate are among the most important issues of our day.
This wildly aggressive censorship and “cancel-culture” is not only un-American—it has direct, real-world consequences. Most obvious are the many catastrophes unfolding under the current administration: the calamitous Afghanistan withdrawal, the disaster at the Southern Border, runaway inflation, and the multi-trillion-dollar socialist spending nightmare, just to name a few. In a country that had free speech and a free flow of information, none of this would ever have happened—and no one understands that better than the people doing the censoring.
Yet the silencing and cancellation also affects our country in more subtle, but equally destructive, ways. How many Americans no longer trust a word they hear from their leaders, media, or public health officials, because the one thing they know for certain is that they are not getting the full story? How many ordinary citizens have sadly come to resent their neighbors, feeling that they now live in two entirely different realities? And how many millions of Americans silently oppose so much of the nonsense being inflicted on us, but see the heavy hand of the cancelers, and conclude that their voice can make no difference, or that the cost of speaking up is just too high?
The new age of censorship is a disaster for our country. Things were far better in the days when we had our debates fiercely and openly, and then we could move forward together, as Americans, with both sides knowing that their voice, and their best arguments, had been heard.
The more I looked into this problem, the more I realized that to restore free speech, a major new platform would have to enter the market, with an ironclad commitment to protecting vigorous debate from all sides. But since it is both hard and expensive to build a new platform totally independent of Big Tech’s infrastructure, it would have to be an extremely well-funded, multi-year undertaking. In addition, such a platform would need the ability to rapidly attract millions of users, welcoming not only Republicans to join, but Independents and Democrats as well.
It’s a tremendously difficult set of challenges—and I realized I might be the only person in America with the megaphone, the resources, the experience, and the desire to make it all happen. So with the same “can-do” spirit that has always allowed Americans to persevere, that is exactly what I am doing.
To take on Big Tech censorship, we are creating a “Big Tent” platform: Truth Social. We are inviting people of all political stripes, and all different viewpoints, to come and participate once again in the great American debate. That’s what our country is supposed to be about. Unlike with the Big Tech platforms, there will be no shadow-banning, throttling, demonetizing, or messing with algorithms for political manipulation. We will not be treating users like lab rats for social experiments, or labeling alternative views as “disinformation.” We will not silence our fellow citizens simply because they might be wrong—or worse, because we think that Americans “can’t handle the truth.”
It will be as free, vibrant, lively, and diverse as America itself. And Truth Social is only the beginning of our plans. The Trump Media and Technology Group will also be launching an on-demand video streaming service that competes with the increasingly “woke” and politicized ‘entertainment’ programming created by Big Tech and Big Media players. TMTG also sees opportunities to create “cancel-proof” alternatives in other key areas ranging from web services to payment processing.
In the end, a small number of powerful people who all think the same and wish to silence anyone who thinks differently cannot be trusted to control almost every major media, technology, and entertainment company in America. I am determined to break their chokehold over the voices of the American People—not just for myself and my own supporters, but for the United States of America!
We urge CHQ readers and friends to visit www.truthsocial.com to sign up for the invite list.
Trump Media and Technology Group
Digital World Acquisition Corp.
Merger
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Big Tech
Free Speech
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Truth Social
TMTG+
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