Major investor refuses to bankroll Trump’s ‘fake news business’

One of the talking points that 2016 Donald Trump voters, many of whom switched to now-President Joe Biden in 2020, used to justify voting for him the first time was, "Well, he's a smart businessman." But Trump, in fact, has had more than his shares of ups and downs in business — and some people in the business world want nothing whatsoever to do with Trump or the Trump Organization. Item: hedge fund manager Boaz Weinstein, according to the New York Times, withdrew his investment after learning that he would be supporting Trump's social media company Truth Social.

Weinstein told the Times, "Many investors are grappling with hard questions about how to incorporate their values into their work. For us, this was not a close call."

Trump envisions Truth Social as a far-right alternative to Twitter, which suspended his account indefinitely earlier this year.

On October 21 in the New York Times, journalists David Enrich, Matthew Goldstein and Shane Goldmacher reported, "Thanks to one of Wall Street's hottest fads, the former president has managed to sidestep (his) tarnished reputation and gain access to hundreds of millions of dollars to launch a social media company. Riding to his rescue: SPACs. Special purpose acquisition companies are the reverse of initial public offerings. Sometimes called blank-check companies, SPACs go public first and raise money from investors with the goal of finding a private company to merge with. Those investors have no clue about what that merger partner will turn out to be."

According to Enrich, Goldstein and Goldmacher, "Mr. Trump's new company, Trump Media and Technology Group — incorporated in Delaware in February with little fanfare, and with no revenue or tested business plan — reached a deal to merge with Digital World on (October 20). Digital World, which was set up shortly after Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election, last month raised nearly $300 million, largely from big investors. Assuming the merger is consummated, that money will soon be bankrolling the Trump media venture, which plans early next year to offer a Twitter-like social media app."

When Boaz's company, Saba Capital, found out what Truth Social was, it wanted nothing to do with it.

HuffPost's Ed Mazza notes that according to Financial Times, an unnamed investor — upon learning what Truth Social would be — pulled out immediately, and it is unclear if that person who spoke to Financial Times was Weinstein. The investor is quoted as saying, "The idea that I would help (Trump) build out a fake news business called Truth makes me want to throw up."