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SPAC to the Future

The impish finance types who create ghost companies, then take them public through an I.P.O. with nothing more than a promise and a wink, have been busy this year—including the three geniuses behind what became the $5.6 billion Trump Media & Technology Group.

Devin Nunes, Donald Trump
The sponsors of the Renatus SPAC include Devin Nunes, the former congressman turned C.E.O. of Trump Media, who is now chairman of the Renatus board of directors. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images
William D. Cohan
May 18, 2025

SPACs, one of the more odious products that Wall Street has ever devised, are making an unlikely comeback. SPAC Insider reports that there have been 44 SPAC I.P.O.s so far in 2025, compared to 57 in all of 2024, and 31 in 2023. (The FT commemorated the revival with their own ditty.) That’s peanuts compared to the 613 SPACs that raised more than $162 billion during the hallucinatory days of 2021. But such is the SPAC comeback that the three geniuses behind what’s now Trump Media & Technology Group have formed a new Special Purpose Acquisition Company with the mellifluous name Renatus Tactical Acquisition Corp I, and filed to raise around $180 million in an I.P.O.