Trump rips 'cancel culture' after stock linked to Truth Social tumbled

Trump says he’s the ‘only person in America’ who can challenge Big Tech and vows to fight ‘cancel culture’ after shares in company linked to his social media site tumbled for the second day

• The ex-president defended his quest to create a new social media site after shares in the company that will own Truth Social fell on Monday
• Stocks in the firm, Digital World Acquisition Corp, went up 800% last week
• Market watchers compare its rise to ‘meme stocks’ like GameStop and AMC 
• Trump blamed ‘cancel culture’ for the Afghanistan withdrawal and border crisis 
• He pledged his new site would be as ‘vibrant, lively and diverse as America itself’

Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he’s ‘the only person in America’ equipped to  challenge Big Tech ‘censorship’ – as shares in the company behind his new social media venture Truth Social tumbled for the second day.

He tore into ‘wildly aggressive censorship’ on existing social media platforms and decried ‘cancel culture’ as ‘un-American.’ 

Through his new company, Trump Media & Technology Group, the ex-president made a lengthy statement outlining why he was launching a social media site, which he said was ‘about saving our country.’

‘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,’ Trump said.

He added that any plan that’s ‘totally independent of Big Tech’s infrastructure’ would be costly and need 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,’ he said.

‘So with the same “can-do” spirit that has always allowed Americans to persevere, that is exactly what I am doing.’

Trump accused Big Tech leaders of acting as an ‘oligarchy’ and vowed to welcome people of all political affiliations to his new social media site

But his company may have hit some early financial struggle when the firm that plans to list it publicly saw its value drop more than 19 percent as of Tuesday afternoon

He railed against instances of alleged Big Tech censorship including his own removal off Facebook and Twitter at the hands of ‘a small oligarchy of tech titans’ as well as Twitter blocking the New York Post’s report on Hunter Biden’s laptop just weeks before Election Day.

‘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,’ Trump said. 

Trump went even further and blamed ‘cancel culture’ for the numerous crises Joe Biden has seen under his presidency so far.

‘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,’ he said. 

Trump struck an unusually inclusive tone when he pledged his site would be home to ‘people of all political stripes, and all different viewpoints, to come and participate once again in the great American debate’ and that it would be ‘as free, vibrant, lively and diverse as America itself.’

Trump Media & Technology Group, the launchpad for Truth Social, aims to also roll out a streaming service, web services and payment processing companies, according to the ex-president.

Trump Media & Technology Group’s merger deal

Trump Media & Technology Group will merge with Digital World Acquisitions Corps to launch a social media and video streaming services tailored for conservatives and supporters of former President Donald Trump. 

DWAC is a Miami-based special purpose acquisition company with a $293 million trust to finance TMTG’s launch as a publicly traded company. 

TMTG is expected to have an initial value of $875 million, with a potential additional earnout of $825 million, combining to a total $1.7 billion.  

Trump Media & Technology Group has no revenue or tested business plan but has raised nearly $300 million in investor cash. 

But the company has hit early turbulence when stocks in Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC), the company that’s publicly listing Trump’s business on the market, sunk more than 19 percent since the start of the day – after having shot up more than 800 percent late last week.

The shares had closed down just under 11 percent on Monday, the day short-seller Iceberg Research said it was betting against the company. 

On Friday the stock rose 107 percent to $94.20 after hitting a session high of $175. On Thursday it had risen 356.8 percent with some market specialists likening trading in DWAC to a meme-stock trading frenzy led by Reddit message board WallStreetBets earlier this year.  

The forum was again filled with posts celebrating wins and lamenting losses over the stock’s wild market swings Thursday into Friday. Many thanked ‘Daddy Trump’ and mocked Joe Biden with the alt-right meme ‘Let’s go Brandon.’

 But on Monday a company called Iceberg Research announced it was betting against DWAC’s massive surge.

‘Now that initial excitement has passed, we see only risks for investors in near future. Based on Trump’s track record, at current price, renegotiation is likely to keep more of the merged company for him,’ the company posted on Twitter. 

Truth Social got off on a rocky start last week when its beta site was hacked hours after it was announced.

Tech reporters were able to find the site, despite its URL not being public yet, and set up mock accounts representing Trump and Mike Pence.

Trump, who is chairman of Trump Media & Technology Group, had announced the site would launch in early 2022.

The public URL was soon taken offline and fake accounts were promptly banned.

Additionally, pranksters made a fake Trump account and used it to post the meme image of ‘pig poop balls,’ according to Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell.

Trump ramped up his accusations about Big Tech ‘censorship’ early this year after being kicked off of Facebook and Twitter after the Capitol riot

The TRUTH Social app is currently available for pre-order on the Apple App store, with plans to launch a beta version for testers in November. 

On Trump Media & Technology Group’s website, the company outlines its goal to ‘create a media powerhouse to rival the liberal media consortium and fight back against the Big Tech companies of Silicon Valley.’

It aims to disrupt a broad swath of media businesses, naming Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google among others.

Alongside his social media site Trump also aims to launch an on-demand streaming service called TMTG+ which promises to provide ‘non-woke entertainment.’

A 22-page presentation publicly available on the company site details why it claims the circumstances are right for its brand, without going into how it intends to see those ambitious goals through.

Other stocks linked to the former Republican president also tumbled on Tuesday. Shares of Phunware, a company hired by Trump’s 2020 Presidential reelection campaign to build a phone app, were recently down 31.7 percent at 4.89 after it filed for a $48.5 million at-the-market (ATM) equity program.

Source: Read Full Article