Benzinga - Former President Donald Trump has been reinstated on the social media platform Twitter. Many began following Trump's account and are likely wondering why he hasn’t posted yet. An SEC filing might share some clues.
What Happened: Trump was banned in January 2021 from several social media platforms, including Twitter, due to the role he played in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump was reinstated to Twitter over the weekend, thanks to a move made by Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter for $44 billion.
Trump had already amassed more than 80 million followers on Twitter, significantly more than he has on the social media platform Truth Social, which belongs to his own company, Trump Media & Technology Group.
Investors in Digital World Acquisition Corp (NASDAQ: DWAC), a SPAC with a pending merger with Trump Media & Technology Group, are likely concerned that Trump coming back to Twitter could hurt his own platform.
The good news for Truth Social users and Digital World Acquisition investors could be some exclusivity that Truth Social has.
“President Trump is generally obligated to make any social media post on Truth Social and may not make the same post on another social media site for 6 hours. Thereafter he is free to post on any site to which he has access,” a May filing said.
The item was listed in the risk factors that said Truth Social users may not find it compelling to use the platform for the limited exclusivity of Trump’s communications.
“In addition, he may make a post from a personal account related to political messaging, political fundraising or get-out-the-vote efforts on any social media site at any time.”
That last piece could give some wiggle room for Trump to post on Twitter.
Another item previously highlighted in the SPAC merger was the fact that Trump Media & Technology sent a cease-and-desist letter to Jason Miller, the CEO of GETTR, who tried to recruit Trump to join its platform.
Trump has sounded hesitant to rejoin Twitter in recent comments.
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Why It’s Important: Trump Media & Technology Group was founded in an effort to fight against big technology companies, according to the company’s filing.
Twitter is one of the named competitors, along with Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META), Netflix Inc (NASDAQ: NASDAQ:NFLX), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN).
“Twitter currently suppresses conservative speech through various means including ‘shadow banning’ — a surreptitious process in which users may not even know their posts are being hidden from other users,” stated the May filing.
One of the big draws of Truth Social right now is it is one of the few places where Trump could remain active and share thoughts with his followers. Moving to Twitter could be a negative for Truth Social, which could impact the wealth of Trump.
Trump will own 73.3 million shares of the new company and have 57.8% of the voting power if the SPAC merger goes through.
Given the exclusive posts for six hours and Trump’s financial stake in the success of Truth Social and its parent company, it seems likely that Trump would mostly use Twitter for political posts and to promote his presidential campaign and to highlight his own Truth Social platform.
DWAC Price Action: Digital World shares are down 1.54% to $21.05 on Monday versus a range of $15.20 to $101.87. Shares of the SPAC are down 60% year-to-date in 2022.
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