Trump raises $1 billion for his social media app, TRUTH, to fight ‘the tyranny of Big Tech’

Former US President Donald Trump, who has decried Twitter and Facebook and vowed to fight “the tyranny of Big Tech”, has entered into agreements to raise about $1 billion from a group of unidentified investors for his own social media app, TRUTH Social.

The Reuters news agency reported on Sunday that the capital raise underlined Trump's ability to attract strong financial backing thanks to his personal and political brand.

Details of the project were first reported by Reuters on Wednesday. Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC.O), the blank-check acquisition firm that will take Trump Media & Technology Group Corp public by listing it in New York, said it will provide up to $293 million to the partnership with the former president’s media venture, taking the total proceeds to about $1.25 billion.

Trump Media and Digital World said in a statement, the $1 billion will be raised through private investment in public equity (PIPE) transactions from "a diverse group of institutional investors.”

Trump Media signed a deal with Digital World to go public in October at a valuation of $875 million, including debt. The social media venture of Trump is now valued at almost $4 billion based on the price of Digital World shares at the end of trading on Friday.

According to the news release, the social platform is the first of three stages in the company's plans, followed by a subscription video-on-demand service called TMTG+ that will feature entertainment, news and podcasts.

A Trump representative, who remained anonymous, confirmed the contents of the TMTG news release to Reuters. Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington also tweeted a copy.

"For so long, Big Tech has suppressed conservative voices," the former president's son, Donald Trump Jr., told Fox News in a recent interview.

"Tonight my father signed a definitive merger agreement to form what will ultimately be the Trump Media and Technology Group and TRUTH Social - a platform for everyone to express their feelings,” he said on October 21.

Some Wall Street investors are reluctant to associate with Trump. Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms banned Trump from their services after protesters stormed the US Capitol on January 6.

Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in the hope of preventing lawmakers from certifying Joe Biden's victory, thus overturning the outcome of the 2020 presidential election but to no avail.

Trump, who believes that the election was rigged by the US establishment in favor of Biden, has said that the 2020 presidential election was “the greatest Election Hoax in history.”

"As our balance sheet expands, Trump Media & Technology Group will be in a stronger position to fight back against the tyranny of Big Tech," Trump said in a statement on Saturday.

According to recent surveys, most Republicans also believe that the election was stolen from the former president, and Trump is the legitimate president of the United States.

Trump last year accused Twitter and Facebook of wanting to help Biden’s campaign by enforcing policies that restrict users' ability to share a New York Post story that contained alleged details of Hunter Biden’s business dealings with a Ukrainian energy company, also saying the former vice president had met with an adviser of the company.

“Now, Big Tech — you see what’s going on with Big Tech? — is censoring these stories to try and get Biden out of this impossible jam. He’s in a big jam,” Trump said.

"He and his family are crooked and they were caught, they got caught," he added.

Journalist: Dems trying to maintain a stranglehold on the flow of information

Unable to control the flow of information on social and alternative media, the US Democratic Party is attempting to engage in censorship, according to journalist Glenn Greenwald.

Pulitzer Prize-winner American investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald has revealed in a recent article that an axis of the CIA, Big Tech and the DNC-allied wing of the corporate media spread an absolute lie in the weeks before the 2020 presidential election to help Biden win the vote.

He wrote that “the CIA, Big Tech, the liberal wing of the corporate media and the Democratic Party” censored and suppressed “a series of major reports about then-presidential frontrunner Joe Biden.

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