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Inside the Trump Meme-SPAC Clown Car

As a business, the DWAC-TMTG merger is full of red flags: peripatetic sponsor, nonexistent product, outrageous valuation. But a mysterious bulk order, made just before the merger announcement sent the stock flying, may be the most telling market signal of all.

Trump in New York
Photo By Craig F. Walker/The Denver Post via Getty Images
William D. Cohan
October 24, 2021

Just when you thought Donald Trump had no more outrageous tricks up his sleeve, he delivers his latest stunner: the proposed merger of a fantasy social media company—what he is calling Trump Media & Technology Group—with Digital World Acquisition Corp., a SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, started in September by Patrick Orlando, a former JPMorgan & Co, Deutsche Bank emerging-markets derivatives trader, and Luis Orleans-Braganza, a member of Brazil’s National Congress, representing San Paolo. The 22-page investor deck, published on the TMTG website, promises a social media app to compete with Twitter and Facebook; a news and streaming platform to rival CNN and Netflix; and a “tech stack” to compete with Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services.