Two founders of Donald Trump’s Truth Social social media platform filed a lawsuit against him on Wednesday. They allege that he and others have been involved in “11th hour, pre-merger corporate maneuvering,” machinations that would “drastically dilute” their partnership’s stake in the social media company.
United Atlantic Ventures, a partnership between former “Apprentice” contestants Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, alleges that it pitched the idea for the social media company to the disgraced former president, agreeing he would receive 90% of the company’s stake, while Litinsky and Moss (and a lawyer) would split the remaining 10%.
“Former President Donald J. Trump … is causing TMTG to not only dispute UAV’s established right to 8,600,000 shares or 8.6% of TMTG’s issued and outstanding stock, but also attempting to drastically dilute UAV’s interests in connection with an impending merger,” a motion in the Delaware suit says.
That motion claims that UAV’s current 8.6% stake in Trump’s company would be diluted to less than 1% as a result of the TMTG board approving an eight-fold increase in the total number of authorized shares in the firm, from 120 million shares to 1 billion shares.
Since it launched in 2022, Truth Social platform has been, like many of Trump’s businesses, something of a disaster.
This has got to be a real “leopards ate my face” moment for Litinsky and Moss since it has long been understood that doing business with Donald Trump is the same as doing business with a con man. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, Trump's business model is a legacy of artisans and contractors stiffed out of payments.
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Former Trump lawyer Rudolph Giuliani suggests Trump owes him for “unpaid legal fees.”
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Trump’s former personal driver of 25 years sued Trump for unpaid overtime—and claimed he was given only two meager raises during the time that Trump employed him. According to the driver, his second raise ($7,000) was dependent on him surrendering the health care benefits that Trump had been providing to him.
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Workers installed bathroom partitions in Trump’s Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and ended up being paid only 30 cents on the dollar of what Trump initially agreed to pay. These workers were just some of a great many whom Trump stiffed regarding that project.
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Literally hundreds of workers have sued Trump for allegedly not paying them.
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And of course, don’t forget the money he owes all of us for decades of alleged tax “avoidance.”
The latest lawsuit over Truth Social adds a new wrinkle into the long-delayed and rocky,merger deal between Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, and Digital World Acquisition. The merger would make the social media site a publicly traded company, and with Trump facing about half a billion dollars in legal penalties, the merger and his potentially $3 billion stake in Trump Media & Technology Group would be very welcome to the multiply indicted Trump.
This is just one of three lawsuits filed this week in connection with Trump Media & Technology Group. On Thursday, Arc Global Investments II sued Digital World Acquisition to block its merger with Trump Media, saying Arc’s leader, a former executive of Digital World, is being shorted stock in the merger. That lawsuit was filed after Digital World and Trump Media sued Arc and its leader on Tuesday, claiming he was blocking the merger in order to “obtain a windfall by way of extortion.”
As time ticks away and fines and unpaid interest continue to accrue, Trump’s financial jeopardy only increases. If the merger and subsequent public offering are further delayed, Trump might need to sell a lot of those ugly fake gold sneakers.
Simon Rosenberg from the Hopium Chronicles Substack is back to talk about the facts of the 2024 election cycle. The facts are: Things look bad for Donald Trump—and even worse for the Republican Party.
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