When Elon Musk became the top single shareholder of Twitter, and was invited to sit on the board with Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter, people naturally began asking, "What of Trump?"
Would he return to the platform after being banned? Twitter appeared to pour cold water on that idea immediately in a statement:
"Our policy decisions are not determined by the Board or shareholders, and we have no plans to reverse any policy decisions. As always our Board plays an important advisory and feedback role across the entirety of our service. Our day-to-day operations and decisions are made by Twitter management and employees."
But more important to Trump's 2024 campaign is what happened to Twitter's stock on the news of Musk's $3 billion buy.
Digital World Acquisitions Corp is the parent company of Truth Social- an alternative to Twitter. Donald Trump owns about 70% of DWAC. On April 1st, DWAC stock was trading at about $65 per share. After the Twitter/Musk news on Monday, DWAC had bottomed out Wednesday at about $45 per share. That's a 30% drop in three days.
The news may have pushed at least two executives at the company to jump ship, which they did on Tuesday. This tidbit also pushed stocks lower at a time when they needed to be buoyed.
Ultimately, the DWAC venture has been very good for Donald Trump, though. In October of last year, Bloomberg estimated that the company had made Trump $4.8 billion dollars richer. For context, Trump's was worth about $3.5 billion (Forbes estimate) in 2017. So with one company's launch, he doubled his money. That's "yuge."
Personal finances, at the presidential level, usually don't fund campaigns, so the campaign itself is not at a loss here. It's simply the amount of lawsuits that governments like the southern district of New York et. all have continued to bring against Trump, which serve at the very least to keep him spending his own money as a political consequence for being disliked.
It also serves as a warning against non-wealthy future political candidates, which is a terrible consequence for a democracy "of the people, by the people." Turning it instead into, "people, who have to vote for wealthy people."
Ryan Wiggins is the author of the extremely serious and not funny robot novel, The Life of Human, and is a writer and producer of television shows. He is the host of Wiggins America on 97.1 FM Talk in St. Louis.
