Former President Donald Trump was accused in a lawsuit Wednesday of trying to “drastically dilute” the value of stock shares in his social media company held by the firm’s co-founders, potentially depriving themof hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.
The partnership, United Atlantic Ventures alleges that Trump Media & Technology Group engaged in “wrongful 11th hour … maneuvering” to dilute UAV″s minority stake in the media company, a court filing says.
The Delaware Chancery Court lawsuit comes in advance of the planned merger of TMTG with a shell company called Digital World Acquisition Corp., which would result in the shares of the combined entity being publicly traded.
If DWAC shareholder approve the merger next month, Trump’s 90% stake in TMTG could be valued at more than $3 billion, given DWAC’s current share price.
UAV is a partnership of Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, who initially pitched Trump the idea of creating Trump Media in February 2021, after the former president was banned from Twitter and Facebook following the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Both Litinsky and Moss were contestants on Trump’s television show, “The Apprentice.”
TMTG later built and launched Truth Social, the social media platform that Trump uses almost exclusively to communicate with the public.
The planned merger comes as Trump, who is the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has been ordered to pay more than $500 million in civil judgments in New York, related to trial verdicts for business fraud and defamation of the writer E. Jean Carroll.
“The attempt here is to deprive them of the deal,” said Christopher Clark, a lawyer for UAV.
“It’s not like they went out and bought a lottery ticket,” Clark said of the co-founders. “They actually went out and did the work, they created Truth Social, and now the beneficiary of that, Donald Trump, doesn’t want to pay.”
“Not a unique story, unfortunately,” Clark said, referring to Trump’s infamous practice of contesting bills from contractors and lawyers.
This is the same crime he’s been committing for decades and getting away with it, at least until the State of New York finally stepped up and did something about it. But he’s clearly still at it. If these guys manage to deprive him of his 3 billion dollar deal, that would be of great service to the world.