cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/13470219

Trump Is in Line for a $3.5 Billion Windfall From Stake in Truth Social

If the SPAC is approved this week, he could potentially use the stock as collateral to get a bond and avoid having properties seized or declaring bankruptcy by next week’s deadline.

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    38·
    9 months ago

    There’s no possible way Truth Social is worth that much. DWAC is a scheme to launder retail investor’s money directly into Donald Trump’s pocket.

  • Pronell@lemmy.world
    30·
    9 months ago

    That’s not how valuation works.

    If it goes public with a large share price he would STILL need to sell shares to someone willing to spend enough to bail him out.

    And they are already saying no.

    But they’d say yes if they owned a piece of his social media outlet? No, they could ask that of him now.

    • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
      17·
      9 months ago

      He’s not really taking Truth Social public, though. He is letting it be acquired by DWAC, whose sole purpose for existing is to acquire Truth Social. DWAC is public, and has been pumped hard by Trump supporters thinking it will make them rich.

      As far as I can tell, his plan is to have DWAC acquired it at an insanely high valuation, cashing himself out at their expense. his fans who invested heavily will be left holding the bag… And will likely still vote for him!

  • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
    21·
    9 months ago

    That values Truth Social at $6 billion. Reddit’s IPO valued it at $6.4 billion.

    Even if $6B is what is implied by whatever is happening, you need a buyer who is willing to pay Trump that valuation 6 months after the acquisition. Just no way it can stand up to that valuation, it does not have the users for it. 2 million active users to Reddits 500 million.

    • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
      81·
      9 months ago

      Not to mention…who wants to buy it? I mean, the selling point there is basically Trump, for Trump fans, right? So if Trump exits, what’s the appeal?

      I mean, nobody’s going to Reddit because they want to read spez’s comments. If spez leaves, it’s not a big deal. But I don’t think that Truth Social is in that position.

      googles

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_Social

      It looks like it’s basically a custom Mastodon frontend:

      Truth Social is modeled heavily after Twitter; users are able to make posts (“Truths”, similar to tweets) and share other users’ posts (“ReTruths”, similar to retweets).[62] The Truth Social platform uses a custom version of the free and open-source social network hosting software Mastodon as its backend, which omits several features, including polls and post visibility options.[12]

      The platform uses the Soapbox frontend instead of Mastodon’s native frontend.[63] TMTG has advertised for developers with skills in using Elixir, the programming language used to build Pleroma.[64]

      On October 21, 2021, the Software Freedom Conservancy group stated they suspected Truth Social had violated Mastodon’s AGPLv3 license by not offering its source code to all users.[65][66][67][68] The Mastodon developers then formally requested that Truth Social comply with the terms of the software license,[69] with Truth Social publishing its source code as a ZIP file on the website on November 12, 2021.[70][71] On February 22, 2022, the source code download was moved to the website’s legal section.[72] A mirror of the source code is available at GitHub, where it was uploaded by uninvolved individuals.[73]

      The source is already available, too. So you’re really just buying the userbase.

      I just can’t see it making a lot of sense for a buyer. It probably has a non-zero value, but I have a hard time believing that it’s worth all that much.