Trump Windfall of 3 Billion Dollars

When a person is millions of dollars in debt, getting a 3 billion dollar windfall comes at an opportune time.  Donald Trump is due to be handed a $3 billion payday as the Republican presidential contender faces a looming deadline to pay a huge legal bill, after his social media company passed the final obstacle to a Wall Street listing.  While he would not be able to sell his shares for six months, the merger of TMTG and Digital World would most likely buttress Mr. Trump’s finances.  On Friday, shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corp, a listed cash shell, voted to approve a merger with Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the company behind Mr. Trump’s social network Truth Social.  It means TMTG will join the NASDAQ exchange as early as next week.  Mr. Trump will own a majority of the combined company with a stake worth around $3 billion. 

The vultures have started to circle. New York Attorney General Letitia James has said she will seize Trump’s real estate assets if he can’t pay the bond. Her office has already begun preparing to take action in Westchester County, where Trump owns several properties.  Donald Trump on Friday claimed to have nearly half a billion dollars in cash.  Trump wrote in an all-caps Truth Social post Friday morning……“Through hard work, talent, and luck, I currently have almost five hundred million dollars in cash, a substantial amount of which I intended to use in my campaign for president.” Trump also says that he is saving it to bankroll his campaign for president.  He also claimed that the judge who delivered the fraudulent verdict was preventing him from spending his money on his presidential campaign.

Mr. Trump has until Monday to pay a $454 million dollar bond in a New York civil fraud case and authorities could seize his assets if he does not pay. He must pay the bond as he seeks to appeal a ruling that he fraudulently inflated the value of his assets.  The merger had faced late hurdles amid uncertainty over whether Arc Global Investments, Digital World’s largest shareholder, would support the deal. But Digital World secured enough support in a shareholder meeting on Friday.  Shares in Digital World have surged this year, a phenomenon believed to be in part due to Mr. Trump’s voters buying up the shares as a show of support.  ‘The Donald’ posts several times a day on Truth Social, which launched as a rival to Twitter in 2021, now called X.