I somehow doubt institutional investors have touched this any more than they invested in his virtual trading cards.
Likely this ends up being some nonzero amount of found money but I would not be surprised if by the time he can sell there are no buyers for volume at any price.
That’s my guess, that he ends up with found money that most of us would be absolutely stunned to have, but that doesn’t (for example) even put a dent in his legal judgements.
Somebody is buying DWAC today. Up 35%
Michael Milken?
My guess would be Kevin O’Leary.
Because Wall Street says it’s worth that much…how else do you think they manufacture money !!
I’ve put some amount of thought into the secondary effects of Trump and the wider MAGA world’s constant fundraising. (And, additionally, Democratic spending against Trump and MAGA.)
In essence, you’re taking money from the most stupid and partisan, so it’s a form of protracted financial attrition warfare against those specific individuals. That money is then, largely, going to these three parties:
I expect that Trump’s lawyers are mostly fairly practical, if unethical people who don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye with him politically. Maybe a few are MAGA but they’re probably mostly not.
Business owners in purple states we would expect to be purple.
Facebook and Google employees are probably mostly blue.
Financially, he’s mostly moving money from red to purple and blue.
Thanks Trump!
Haven’t read the whole thread, but I think this is impossible to value. And I don’t really see it failing, certainly not soon.
I see such an opportunity for corruption. Why wouldn’t, say Russia, just buy a ton of stock in a way that just keeps the stock propped up. And when Trump wants to dump a ton of stock, Russia will just buy it for whatever or more than it’s worth.
Obviously they just want the access/bribery etc and don’t think this is a real investment. And Russia could many countries or people, just out in the open legal bribery. All qualified by a “i Iike the stock” responses to mantain plausibleness.
I think it’s not very efficient. 43% of the bribe goes elsewhere – to other shareholders – and there is a large volume of stock to float. It’s more efficient to bribe by overpaying on real estate, hotel rooms, etc. Plus you can do it in a variety of denominations and not just one big $3B float.
It’s worth noting that a PRC fund was one of the original investors of the company that merged with TS. That seems like a likely attempt to influence a potential future president.
Truth Social releases its 8K (financial form mandated by the SEC) and Josh Marshall of TPM walks through it. Josh is something of an expert on this, having run a journalistic website with similar revenue to theirs for over 20 years.
Ok, as previously reported, Truth Social has $4.1 million in revenue and $58 million in costs. But Josh points out that theoretically, they could be building their user base up: this would precede monetization. That’s what Facebook did.
So he digs down into the report and finds that they don’t report traditional key performance indicators. These include revenue per person (a monetization metric)… but also user growth. Also, they may never report these figures. Ouch. There’s no plausible business case here: the underlying business is worthless and will just burn through its money until it runs out. Happily for Trump, $300 million of new funding will support $60 million of annual costs for 5 years. 5 years > 6 months lock-in period. Pump, dump, collapse.
Who put in the capital that allows them to sustain these losses?
Initial funding was from past political donors, eg Karl Pfluger of Midland Oil, Patrick Walsh who runs luxury gyms, Texas telecom billionaire Kenny Troutt, Roy Bailey of Bailey Deason Capital Investments, and Oregon real estate developer Roy Bailey.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/who-funded-trumps-truth-social-some-answers-2022-10-28/
As they burnt through the initial capital, further loans from a pornography bank with Russian ties were secured.
Presumably the initial investors will cash out in 6 months.
I had heard a discussion on the radio about how dangerous Truth Social could be as a way to either launder money and/or buy influence. Someone who wants to get on Trump’s good side need not hand an illegal packet of cash to him. Just buy lots of Truth Social stock. Nothing illegal about that. This would be massively dangerous if Trump became president.
That’s enough of a bankroll to make this into a viable company. Lots of successful startups end up with a product that is very different than their initial business plan. Truth Social doesn’t have to define the success or failure of this company. The company could be successful even if Truth Social doesn’t exist in the future. What they do with the $300M will determine whether the company is successful or not.
The issue seems to be that it appears very likely that most, if not all, of that $300 million will wind up in the pockets of either Trump himself, or the initial investors. I’m extremely skeptical that much, if any, of it will be used to actually develop and improve a product.
I mentioned up-thread that it’s not a very efficient method since 43% of the bribe would go to other people.
And yet the people giving the bribe this way can sell their stake down the road and get most of it back…or maybe even make a profit if others keep piling in.
Not with this stock. The point of this thread is that the company has no path to profitability. It is just one guy’s blog. How much interest will there be in his ramblings after the election (regardless of the outcome)? To top it off with Musk’s purchase of Twitter there is a much better option for conservative voices to rant on social media. TS might have had a place if Twitter had stayed their course.
As far as bribing someone through DJT stock: It is a huge, lossy commitment. You can’t just throw $10k in for a favor every now and then like you can with an over-priced hotel suite. You’d have to pump in a continuous stream of money to keep the price up. Meanwhile the other 47% of the shareholders are dumping like crazy and so are the people buying from them. The high frequency trading systems get on board and start eeking out the micropennies faster than Trump can. It’s like trying to bribe someone by losing at poker, but someone else keeps winning the hands.
If someone wants to bribe Trump, they can pay too much for one of his properties. Or give him another loan against worthless collateral.
I think if Trump becomes president again the stock would basically be a Ponzi scheme…but legal. People would dive in to buy favor. A $50 million stock buy for the Saudis to have Trump not fight them on oil or a regional scuffle is chump change for them. Putin could do the same. $50 million stock buy…get out of Ukraine. Another $50 million…maybe ditch NATO. Putin could write the check himself and barely notice.
Truth Social is down 22% so far today. Even the original investors may not get their money back,