Trump’s Fundraising Plan
Millions of fools and their money may soon be parted.
Two somewhat related reports via Taegan Goddard.
Rolling Stone (“Trump Is Now Fundraising Off His Inability to Pay Fraud Bond“):
ONCE UPON A time, long before he set his sights on the White House, Donald Trump leveraged his massive real estate empire into a braggadocious reality TV show called The Apprentice. The show’s bombastic theme song sang “money, money, money, money,” at viewers over shots of Trump’s New York properties, private planes, and helicopters. Now, two decades after the show first premiered, the former president is begging his followers to fork over cash in order to preserve the assets on which he built his throne.
“KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF TRUMP TOWER!” Trump’s campaign screamed in a text message sent out Wednesday morning to potential donors. “Insane radical Democrat AG Letitia James wants to SEIZE my properties in New York. THIS INCLUDES THE ICONIC TRUMP TOWER!” Trump added in a memo linked in the text message.
“Before the day is over, I’m calling on ONE MILLION Pro-Trump patriots to chip in and say: STOP THE WITCH HUNT AGAINST PRESIDENT TRUMP!” the donation page read.
On Monday, the former president’s attorneys revealed that they had been unable to secure a bond backer to guarantee the nearly half a billion dollars he would need to submit an appeal on a massive New York civil fraud ruling against him and his company. Last month, Trump was ordered to pay $355 million in damages to the state of New York and barred “from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years,” after being found liable for defrauding investors and the state through his real estate holdings.
Trump is livid — ot only because he was rejected by 30 different underwriters, but because unless he comes up with the money by Monday, the state could begin seizing his assets to collect payment.
“If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” New York Attorney General Letitia James told ABC News last month.
WSJ (“Trump Is in Line for a $3.5 Billion Windfall From Stake in Truth Social“):
Donald Trump’s supporters are pushing to hand him a nearly $3.5 billion windfall by driving up the value of his also-ran social-media platform, which is on the cusp of getting approval to list on the stock market.
Trump’s winning lottery ticket would come from Truth Social, the social-media platform he launched in 2021. After a twisted path that included tens of millions of dollars in losses and insider-trading convictions, the shell company taking Truth Social public became the market’s latest meme stock. Trump’s supporters banded together to push up the stock, valuing Truth Social to a staggering $6 billion.
Truth Social could go public as soon as next week, but the deal still needs to be approved by shareholders. Even if that happens, Trump must hold his shares for six months.
Truth Social was created by Trump when he was bounced from the major social-media platforms. Since the presidential candidate was reinstated by Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter, Truth Social has instead become a potential huge paycheck.
Truth Social’s parent is set to go public by combining with a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Its shareholders, nearly all Trump supporters, are expected to approve the merger Friday morning. Trump’s company could replace the shell company in the stock market as soon as Monday. The new ticker would be DJT, Trump’s initials.
If the deal goes through, Trump’s $3.5 billion windfall could ease his financial pressure and boost his political campaign.
Given that Trump needs to post $454 million in less than a week, I’m skeptical he’ll be able to fundraise it in time. One imagines his enthusiasts are getting tapped out by this point. Indeed, he reportedly only took in $39.3 million in all of February and his campaign only has $74.4 million cash on hand.
A massive windfall from Truth Social would certainly help him out considerably but not in time. Further, I’m skeptical that the fake valuation will come to fruition. Who are these people willing to invest that kind of money to buy a near-worthless social media outfit?
This has been Trump’s entire business model since his first bankruptcy. Put together a half assed business with no intention of it ever succeeding, and then find gullible suckers to pay him for it. He bails or, more often, never had any investment in the company to begin with, and then the poor bastards are left holding worthless shares. But he is very good at conning the rubes and there are always more suckers.
$3.5 billion? That means there are probably hundreds of thousands of trumpers who are about to lose their retirement savings. They will of course blame Joe Biden.
So which class of marks are going to lose out on this deal? Or will there be some Russian investors.
Trump’s Truth Social kept losing money in Q3 2023
Trump NFTs sold out in hours, if that tells you anything.
Oh I’m sure there’s a good number of foreigners interested in donating to Donald Trump via perfectly legal and completely unrelated methods…
It’s a cult (of personality). In a cult (of personality) it’s not all that unusual that people give their life savings to the leader of the cult (of personality). Little old ladies and men will send their social security checks and eat dog food to get by to help out the leader of the cult (of personality). It’s pretty much the same audience, only larger, that the TV evangelists target plus a lot of wealthy MAGAs and foreigners buying influence.
Steve
1) I seem to recall reading that the board of directors can waive this requirement.
2) If the State of New York seizes the shares, would they be bound by the same agreement?
3) Can the State seize the shares speculatively? Would they prefer to seize a building that may take a month/year to sell, or shares that will be listed (so liquid) in a few days?
Truth Social is worth $3.5 billion by the same reckoning that Mar-a-Lago is worth $1 billion: because that’s what Trump *wants* it to be worth. Truth Social = Trump University =Trump Steaks = Trump Vodka =another shameless con. The ghost of PT Barnum is laughing.
@Matt:
Unfortunately, Alina Habba’s non-answer about Trump attempting to pursue foreign funds definitely seems to leave this on the table.
https://www.salon.com/2024/03/21/wtf-alina-habbas-answer-raises-alarms-amid-concerns-may-need-foreign-money-for-legal-bills/
Safe prediction: if this ultimately increases Trump’s foreign entanglements, the Right will blame this on the Democrats for forcing Trump to turn outside the US for aid.
Apparently not just Cletus and Lurleen, it seems Boris and Natasha are dabbling in this also:
https://www.thebulwark.com/the-trump-investigation-you-probably-havent-heard-about/
snip
People who can afford to spend a bit keeping DJT afloat – who expect some sort of benefit from DJT’s continued good fortune.
I genuinely do not understand the Truth Social valuation. Once it’s publicly traded, aren’t the financials subject to auditing? X (aka Twitter) is having a hard enough time retaining advertisers and it has far more users, despite Musk. Are there enough (solvent) pillow and dehydrated meal vendors to prop up advertising on Truth Social?
I have a feeling that IPO is not going to go the way they hope it will.
Tech companies still seem to exists in a parallel financial universe of their own. Yesterday Reddit had a successful IPO. News about it casually mentioned the fact it’s been around since 2005 and has never made a profit.
I fully buy some rich people would bribe Lardass through an IPO. But not at that high a price.
@Jen: I was thinking the same thing. But isn’t the purchasing company already public? Isn’t the valuation based on the transaction price for those shares?
The thing is that in order to realize any value from the stock, either someone needs to loan you money against them or accept them as securities, or you need to sell them. If he needs to sell them, I think they will quickly plummet in value.
@MarkedMan:
EXACTLY. I keep thinking that the only way a “pump and dump” scheme works is if people don’t realize that’s what’s being done. If people know that’s what you are doing (and in this situation, we even know WHY), wouldn’t the wise investor avoid what is to be a certain loss? Or is this like the frozen orange juice market in Trading Places, and someone is planning on getting rich off shorting it?
I’ve already spent/wasted more time thinking about this than I should.
One hopes they get tapped out to the extent that they don’t have gas money to drive to the polls for the in-person voting they insist is the only valid means to vote.
I’m grasping for whatever means Trump being cash-strapped now leads to him being vote-strapped come November.
@Jen:
@MarkedMan:
As I recall, the purchasing company is a SPAC, Special Purpose Acquisition Company. The spac is already publicly traded so they are a public company acquiring truth social. Further my understanding is that the reason this deal didn’t close months ago, is that truth social’s value plummeted after it opened.
As I understand SPAC’s they are investor groups that pool their money to acquire and make a private company public w/o going through the whole “going public” process.
Perhaps Lounsbury can drop by and explain what they are.
@Sleeping Dog:
Can he, though? Okay, that was a cheap shot. If you think he has expertise in that area I’ll have to remember, in this thread anyway, not to ignore his posts and the replies.
@MarkedMan: Can he, though was my thought. I don’t think can’t would stop him in any event.
ETA: Either way someone will be called a bobo lefty simpleton.
Apparently legal drama and lawsuits happening re this deal.
Here is a complex story I’ve not tried to understand – gift linky:
https://wapo.st/3x6nNrr
I’m old enough to remember the late sixties movie, ‘The Magic Christian.’ it starred Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. I think this movie applies to Trump and his adoring deplorables.
IMDB describes ‘The Magic Christian’ briefly:
And … a longer description:
Sounds like it was wayyyyyyyy ahead of it’s time.
@Jen:
If it’s any comfort, the bonding companies apparently couldn’t grasp the “value” of Truth Social either. All but surely he listed it, so I suspect they got a good laugh out of it though.
Would it be possible to start a rumor/conspiracy among the deplorables, to the effect that any money Lardass gets from now on will be seized by Letitia James?
NYAG James has already set in motion the process to seize Trump’s Westchester golf course and Seven Hills estate.
The stock market is anything but rational. The price of Tesla shares is proof of that. If speculators believe Truth Social shares will continue to increase in price, then that’s what they’ll do, each one confident they’ll know when to get out before the bubble bursts.
The fascinating element is that the value of the company, such as it is, depends almost completely in Trump remaining alive and able to post his daily torrent of giibberish. That could end abruptly any day; it will almost certainly end within 10 years. So they’re investing in a firm they know has a very limited life expectancy, and consequently it’s likely the share price will be extremely volatile.
@Ken_L:
This is in correction tho. Tesla is currently the S&P 500’s worst performing stock. Apartheid Clyde focusing so much time on QAnon eruptions via Twitter are not helping.
@CSK:
Not just Westchester, also various NYC properties:
Trump Tower and his penthouse apartment, hotel adjacent Central Park, 40 Wall Street, several apartment buildings in NYC.
No action yet re FL and Chicago properties though.
@Ken_L:
Unless a stock pays a dividend, it’s effectively a baseball card or a beanie baby, but for a company.
There’s a teeny, tiny vote attached, but sometimes there is no voting stock that doesn’t even have that. How much is that vote worth? When Google split shares into 2, with one having a vote and one not, it provided an excellent test. They’re basically the same price — and there have been lots of times when the nonvoting share has been worth more.
So, the vote has a value to regular investors that is less than the random churn caused by computerized trading systems seeking optimum value. Roughly nothing.
@charontwo:
Linky:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/21/politics/trump-calls-ny-attorney-generals-bond-suggestions-impractical-and-unjust/index.html
I have a question for the Trump fans out there. Don’t these complaints about unfair treatment sound like the kind of whining that a real Alpha eschews? I don’t recall John Wayne or Clint Eastwood behaving like that.
@Slugger:
I’m the farthest thing from a Trump fan, but you might want to read this:
ky.aflcio.org/news/atlantic-donald-trump-most-unmanly-president
@Slugger:
Well, what kind of Alpha?
A chimp, for instance, would scream loudly and throw his own turds. That’s remarkably similar to what Lardass does.
Granted the chimp might seem slightly less savage and make more logical sense, but the principle is the same.
@Gustopher: Not quite a baseball card or Beany Baby because the stock share has a known (though approximate and volatile) sale price. But not a completely unreasonable comparison.
ETA: While I’m here, a day or two back, someone was noting that usually the system will go after more liquid assets first. Does the fact that James is going after property show that Trump’s more liquid assets are pronouncedly deficient for NY’s needs (i.e. he’s cash poor)?
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Not quite an answer to your question, but one of the reasons Trump was turned down by bonding companies was that he had lied so much about the value of his real estate no one could figure out what it was worth.
@Kathy:
Oh, that’s evil. In the best possible way.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
That I believe it was Country Lawyer who wrote the bank accounts and securities were the easiest to grab so they would be first. Expect multitasking. I’m sure James and her crew have considered this problem for months. The rack, thumbscrews, fingernail slivers…may be applied simultaneously.
@dazedandconfused: I think my theory will make better oppo ads.
@Slugger: “I have a question for the Trump fans out there. Don’t these complaints about unfair treatment sound like the kind of whining that a real Alpha eschews? I don’t recall John Wayne or Clint Eastwood behaving like that.”
Propaganda does not need to be consistent. ‘We are strong and great, but ‘They’ keep us down!’ works.
By low, sell high. Didn’t Musk go to Mar-a-lago last week? Maybe Trump was asking him to buy a billion or so worth of Truth Social shares and give him the $$. Trump doesn’t care what it’s really worth and I doubt the money launderers and true believers do either.
Musk tweeted that the US needs a red wave or there will be disaster. There are Republicans besides Trump who say we will have the worst civil war in history if he is not elected this year. If he is elected we’ll have concentration camps and retribution against all his perceived enemies big and small.