I don’t give investment advice. But I assure you that a company with $3.4 million in revenue and $49 million in losses over the past nine months is not worth $5 billion. Buy into shares of any company with those numbers and you are certain to be taken for a sucker.
That Donald Trump will be the one doing the bamboozling means that investors in his public media company might as well be making a political donation to his campaign or contributing to a Trump legal defense fund instead. This scheme is unfolding in the plain light of day, and securities regulators are powerless to do anything about it.
[The result of this merger will be called Trump Media & Technology Group, a publicly traded company under the stock symbol TMTG.]
When something just doesn’t make sense within a system, don’t try to stuff it into the newest buzzword. In a financial system, ask Who needs money and who owes or benefits from investing in them? In this case, Donald Trump, known to be desperate for large amounts of cash, whether it’s to satisfy legal system requirements or to feed a religious frenzy, may have a windfall:
Truth Social owner Trump Media & Technology Group has finalized its deal to go public, creating a massive windfall for former President Donald Trump that doubles his net worth. …
Bloomberg estimated Trump’s net worth spiked by $4 billion on Monday alone, giving him a fortune of $6.5 billion. [CNN/Business]
But …
[The TMTG] board could waive Trump’s six-month share lockup agreement, although TMTG stock could sink fast if Trump begins to sell. There also are market demand questions, as DWAC shares began falling on Friday after the vote results were disclosed. [Axios]
In other words, Trump does not have immediate access to funds – yet.
All this sets the context, with the exception of asking Who benefits from Trump doing well?
So ask, Whose bidding has he been doing?
That’s right, a popular answer would be Vladimir Putin.
Trump’s actions during his Administration were often thought to benefit Putin, and Mr. Trump’s announced and hinted at plans if he becomes President again would also be beneficial. Consider his refusal to fund Ukraine’s defense, his dislike of NATO and the European Union.
But Putin can’t have Trump in jail or in default, or Trump loses whatever luster he has left with his base. Without that luster, not only would Trump get blown out in the upcoming election, but so would his domestic allies. Autocrat Putin’s allies are the supposed patriots of the United States, the Republicans, remember. He needs them in power, even if they’re a pack of fourth-rate clowns, in order to use them to advance his goals.
So Putin has to pay off his employees, and without being caught.
And I don’t care what sort of safeguards the SEC has in place against market manipulation, if Putin decides to bid up the price of TMTG, he can do it. He has immense resources to mask such manipulations. All Putin’s proxies have to do is bid the price up with only a small gap between offer and bid. And if it isn’t Putin, the same strategy is available to other illicit Trump customers.
When the price of TMTG reaches a desirably high level and Trump is eligible to sell, then he begins selling. Every time the stock price begins to fall, Putin buys more stock at the designated price, thus obviating the news that Trump is selling. Most of the money involved comes from investors, only a bit comes from Putin’s pockets.
I’m no financial advisor, but I don’t plan to come anywhere near this shitstorm. Even if TMTG is on the up and up, it still involves the Trump family, and …
Former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) will serve as TMTG’s CEO.
Nunes was a disaster in the House, and his tenure at Truth Social has been similarly dubious. If the market cap sank below $50 million, I might toss in a few bucks, but, truthfully, that’d just be raping the inexperienced investor.
But I’ll be mildly surprised if Putin, or possibly some other international pariah, isn’t involved in this mess.
