Subject: OT: trump SPAC and civil fines
some other threads discuss trump's civil fines of ~$0.5B, and the drama around that connection to DWAC is interesting.
the speculation is that if trump can pull this off, it could be his largest single financial grift to date, and there could be ~$2B (very rough estimates based on volatile DWAC ticker) he could monetize, more than enough to cover his fines.

for those not following, here is my view\summary :

A. if the trump.org case loses on appeal, the civil fine is hefty cash and unclear how trump will cover.
B. among the 'more legitimate' pathway is that trump will monetize his stake in the completion of a SPAC designed to bring a trump-founded version (TS='Truth Social') of twitter, to standard public equity markets.
C1. so far, TS is the typical trump business disaster : burning cash (~ -$20M quarterly), bigly undershooting its subscriber and ad revenue goals, and sporadically not paying its invoices.
C2. the only means for the largest insider groups to make money is to get minority (MAGA) shareholders to buy (and hold!) equity.

D1. THIS IS THE BEST PART : 3 insider groups are infighting via multiple lawsuits and countersuits to screw each other over on stakes, despite that none of them can monetize without C2 above...meaning the completion of the SPAC process late March (delayed multiple times already)
Group 1: Trump, TS, and a new CEO are wanting to increase their ~90% to ~99% stake via share dilution, new shares going to trump family&friends.
Group 2: Arc (a Chinese venture fund that provided initial cash) + former CEO P.Orlando
Group 3: UAV (2 original founders that were Apprentice contestants, and gave Trump a 90% for 'participating')

D2. major insiders have to hold restricted shares for 6 months after the SPAC completion BEFORE SALES ALLOWED.
insiders will try to find a workaround, a high priority after the SPAC completion vote. but the SEC is watching because, of course, prior irregularities.
very simply, the typical shareholder of DWAC will get ~$10 held aside if the SPAC completion is formally deemed dead, but can sell anytime afterwards. the general MAGA investing strategy here is that if they hold and trump wins re-election, a worthless social media business will have shares that are somehow going to be worth a lot.
THE INSIDERS NEED TO KEEP THIS FICTION GOING FOR 6 MONTHS FOR A RACE TO THEN DUMP AS MANY SHARES AS POSSIBLE.

E. there seems warrants in the ~10% range of total dilution that can be sold (practically) anytime, and it is not public who owns these. safest to make the worst case assumption that these groups will dump immediately after SPAC closing.

F. trump has put minimal effort (and zero capital) in TS. he can not risk going exclusive TS because MAGA is too lazy to sign up. the TS platform cannot compete against free 24\7 publicity from the entirety of mainstream media, needed for his more important goal to avoid jail via the oval office.

G. well into the world of rumors, it is speculated that trump may be trying to entice a bond lender against some putative future value of his TS stake here. (as if he would relinquish his hard assets first !)

disclosure: in 20+ years of investing, i have never seen a more obvious fraud to short, including NFTs. fortunately for my sanity, the mechanisms and costs to short are huge, and my broker outright disallows this kind of entertainment. thus, all is by proxy.
and its going to make a much better movie than gamestop.