Former President Donald Trump’s media firm believes it can attract 10 million paid subscribers to a new streaming service, and that users will be willing to pay a monthly subscription “closer to Netflix’s given from President Trump’s very enthusiastic base “.
But first, he’s going to have to navigate a federal investigation.
According to documents filed Monday by Digital World Acquisition Company (with which the company SPAC Trump intends to merge), the two companies are under investigation by the SEC and FINRA.
The FINRA investigation preceded the announcement of Trump’s merger (this is a “trade review,” according to the company), but the SEC document request arrived last month. The companies say they are cooperating with investigations.
“In early November 2021, DWAC received a voluntary request for information and documents from the SEC, which sought, among other things, documents relating to DWAC board meetings, policies and procedures relating to trading, l ” identification of banking, telephone and e-mail transactions. addresses, identities of certain investors and certain documents and communications between DWAC and TMTG ”, according to the regulatory file. “According to the SEC’s request, the investigation does not mean that the SEC has concluded that someone has broken the law or that the SEC has a negative opinion of DWAC or any person, event or security.”
The disclosure of the investigations comes after DWAC announced that it had secured an additional $ 1 billion in funding from PIPE, intended to supplement the money raised during the IPO. In its brief on the new financing, TMTG also released a new investor presentation, with details about the company, its structure and its ambitions.
That includes details from the streaming service, which adds that the man who runs it, game show producer Scott St. John, will develop “unawakened” news, documentaries, sports and entertainment. TMTG believes it can reach 40 million users by 2026.
But the first product will be a social network, Truth Social, which appears to be very similar to Twitter. TMTG says he believes he can attract 15 million monetizable users, and that if he can add users beyond Trump’s base (an open question), he could become much bigger. Ultimately, the company predicts that Truth Social will have 81 million users by 2026, based oddly enough on a Politico poll of registered U.S. voters.
