{"id":71631,"date":"2022-11-25T01:31:07","date_gmt":"2022-11-25T01:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tahrir2day.com\/news\/2022\/11\/25\/why-donald-trump-isnt-returning-to-twitter-for-now\/"},"modified":"2022-11-25T01:31:07","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T01:31:07","slug":"why-donald-trump-isnt-returning-to-twitter-for-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tahrir2day.com\/news\/2022\/11\/25\/why-donald-trump-isnt-returning-to-twitter-for-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Donald Trump isn’t returning to Twitter (for now)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Donald Trump loves Twitter. <\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2017 he said he would not have become president without him. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Twitter is a wonderful thing for me because I get to spread the word… I might not be here to speak to you as President right now if I didn’t have an honest way of spreading the word,” he said. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk reversed Mr Trump’s permanent suspension, you might have thought the former president would jump at the chance to come back. But so far he has not accepted this offer. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Why?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Well, only Donald Trump knows the answer to that question for sure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But what we do know is that he has a lot of money to lose by tweeting. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“The simplest explanation is the most likely — it’s about money,” says Josh Tucker, a professor of politics at New York University (NYU). <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After being kicked off Twitter, Donald Trump created his own social media platform called Truth Social – which looks a lot like Twitter. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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To understand the financial bind Donald Trump is in, one must understand the complex nature of building Truth Social’s business. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Last year, the private company that owns Truth Social, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), announced its intention to merge with a publicly traded shell company called Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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DWAC is a so-called Special Purpose Acquisition Company (Spac). Spacs are hyped to speed up the often slow process of a private company’s IPO. Put simply, it is about merging an unlisted company with a listed one. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Both TMTG and DWAC have agreed to a merger, although the transaction is ongoing. But that hasn’t stopped investors from pouring money into DWAC — they’re all speculating the deal will go through. The shell company is currently valued at more than $800m (\u00a3665m). <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Considering that DWAC would acquire only about a quarter of TMTG, Mr. Trump’s newly merged company would be worth at least $3 billion to $4 billion, says Michael Ohlrogge, an academic specializing in Spacs. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cHe would own the vast majority. He would probably own 70 or 80% of it.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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If all goes well, it would make this company one of the most successful of Donald Trump’s career. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But the key to keeping the stock value high is making sure the former president stays with Truth Social — exclusively. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It’s hard to see what Truth Social has to offer without Donald Trump. The social media company was founded by him. Why should his supporters also use the platform if he posts somewhere else? <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Truth Social is already struggling to attract users. Analytics firm Similar Web estimates that the platform had eight million website visits in September 2022, up from 11.5 million in July. For a social media company, that’s tiny. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Similar Web estimates that Twitter had nine billion page views in September.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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  • Donald Trump wants to run for the presidency in 2024 <\/li>\n
  • Musk lifts Donald Trump’s Twitter ban<\/li>\n
  • Six reasons Trump is having a harder time running this time<\/li>\n
  • Trump’s Twitter downfall<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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    If Donald Trump stopped posting or did it elsewhere, he could potentially weaken DWAC’s stock price and wipe hundreds of millions of dollars off its worth. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    So important was Donald Trump’s exclusivity with Truth Social to the proposed merger with DWAC that a statutory provision was included in the agreement. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    It states: “President Trump is generally required to publish every social media post on Truth Social and may not publish the same post on any other social media site for 6 hours.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    This means that Donald Trump could not only lose a lot of money using Twitter (by scaring investors) but could also be sued. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    “It’s hard to say who would win, but it wouldn’t be a completely crazy suit if you tried to bring it,” says Ohlrogge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    It means Donald Trump is now in a bind. Maybe he wants to return to Twitter. But he’s financially\u2014let alone legally\u2014constrained not to do so.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    However, there are other factors that could make him tweet again. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    First off, DWAC’s stock price has been acting very strangely lately. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Rather than just being a place for people to de facto invest in Truth Social, people have been buying DWA stock to invest in the former President himself. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    “It’s a meme stock,” says Michael Klausner, a law professor at Stanford University. Meme stocks are companies with many small investors who are online or social media followers and can drive the stock price up and down. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Klausner says many of those who have invested in DWAC are Trump’s own supporters. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    “They think Trump’s name attached to something will be valuable,” he says. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    That means DWAC’s stock price will go up when Donald Trump’s fortunes go up and go down when things get worse. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    On Monday, November 7, he surged after reports surfaced that he was planning to run for president in 2024. But nine days later, when he finally confirmed the news in a speech criticized for being “low-energy,” the stock price fell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    The theory here is that although DWAC is merging with Truth Social, it is actually giving Donald Trump the opportunity to take himself – his personal brand – public. If that’s the case, it wouldn’t matter so much if Mr Trump stopped using Truth Social – as the social media company is just a proxy for the man himself. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    For NYU’s Josh Tucker, the situation raises interesting moral questions. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    “Personally, I’ve never heard of anything like this before — that there is a large sum of money tracking what appears to be a politician’s political fortune.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    He warns that a politician may make decisions based not on what is good for his political aspirations but instead for his financial ones. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    “If you’re a Republican, you might want your Republican candidate to use the media to the best of their ability,” he says. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Tucker argues that if Republicans voted for Donald Trump as their presidential nominee, they would expect him to use broader social media for his campaign \u2014 rather than confining himself to just one platform for financial gain. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    But Donald Trump may have foreseen this problem. Another provision buried in the merger agreement allows him to use other social media platforms for “political news.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    It could be a “loophole,” Klausner says, that would allow Trump to tweet without breaking the treaty. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Not only that, Mr Trump is only bound by the agreement to only post on Truth Social until July 2023, Ohlrogge says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    \u201cMy reading is after that point [legally] he could post directly to Twitter without first posting to Truth Social,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    There’s another reason to think Donald Trump might be back on Twitter. The merger itself is currently being investigated by the Federal Office. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    The deal could still fall through, and Donald Trump’s legal obligation to only post on Truth Social would also be torn apart. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Mr Trump could lose money, but it would open the door even wider for a Twitter return. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    As with many of Mr Trump’s financial affairs, it’s complicated. And Donald Trump is not a person who is easily predictable. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    But what we do know is that he would likely make a small fortune if he stayed exclusively at Truth Social and completed the Spac merger. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    It is difficult to understand that this is not an important factor in his thinking. Will this calculation change as we get closer to an election? <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    It can go well. But for now, Mr Trump says he’s staying where he is. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    consequences <\/i>James Clayton on Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n