By Helen Coster and Krystal Hu
– Ever since former U.S. President Donald Trump launched a new media company aimed at rivaling Twitter, there has been a mystery over who provided the money. Trump didn’t. So who did?
Now there are some answers in a cache of documents provided by lawyers representing William Wilkerson, a former executive who filed a whistleblower claim with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against the media company and Digital World Acquisition Corp, the blank-check firm taking it public.
The documents show Truth Social’s early backers include six businessmen outside of the Silicon Valley mainstream — including two executives from an oil company and a gym chain, several Republican donors, a former U.S. ambassador to Portugal and the head of a mail-order fruitcake company.
The involvement of the previously unnamed financial backers of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) – parent company of social media app Truth Social – shows how Trump tapped his political supporters to launch an outlet aimed at political conservatives and libertarians after he was banned from Twitter and Facebook following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on Congress.
Representatives for former President Trump and TMTG did not respond to a request for comment about the investors named in the documents, which were submitted to the SEC and Department of Justice by Wilkerson, and other parts of this story.
Digital World Chief Executive Patrick Orlando and TMTG co-founders Andy...
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