Trump Sues the Truth Social Cofounders Who Made Him Billions in “Trumpiest” Lawsuit of All Time

Truth Social was created as a result of Donald Trump being kicked off of Twitter for inciting a violent riot and using the platform to claim it was justified. Now, two years after launching, the ex-president’s social network continues to be a hotbed of chaos and drama, with Trump most recently suing the parent company’s own cofounders.

Yes, just days before Trump Media & Technology Group was listed on the Nasdaq, the ex-president filed a lawsuit against Trump Media executives Wes Moss and Andy Litinsky, claiming the duo failed to properly debut Truth Social, find a merger partner to take the company public, and set up a corporate governance structure for the parent company. For their alleged offenses, Trump wants Moss and Litinsky, Apprentice alums, to be stripped of their 8.6% stake in the company, currently valued at around $606 million. The suit follows a February filing against Trump from the two men, in which they claimed the former president tried to dilute their shares by increasing the total number of shares in the company from 120 million to 1 billion. At a hearing in Delaware on Monday, the executives told judge Sam Glasscock III that they will request an order barring Trump’s suit against them until their claims are resolved. According to Bloomberg, Glasscock said he was “gobsmacked” to find out about Trump’s lawsuit.

While Trump’s personal stake in the company has fallen in value since last week’s debut—following the disclosure that it had just $4.1 million in revenue last year and around $58 million in losses—it is still worth billions. Commenting on Trump’s attempt to strip the very people who set him up to receive such a big financial windfall, Joe Scarborough called it “the Trumpiest story of all time.” He added, “So this guy starts a company, goes public, everything Trump does, you know, he loses billions of dollars, it seems, and then he sues his cofounders. This is literally everything he does, his whole life. He gets a painter to paint his office, they’ll paint it, he’ll sue them and say, ‘I’ll give you 50%.’ It is so sleazy, but it is how you and I and [Morning Joe cohost] Mika [Brzezinski] and everybody else that has been around him for decades, they all say this is how he works. Everybody that goes into business with this guy regrets it because he’s a terrible businessman and he sues you.” (Trump has long been accused of stiffing the people who do work for him.)

In other Truth Social news, The Guardian reported on Wednesday that “Trump Media managed to go public last week only after it had been kept afloat in 2022 by emergency loans provided in part by a Russian-American businessman under scrutiny in a federal insider-trading and money-laundering investigation.” (In a statement, a lawyer for Trump Media told the outlet, “The Guardian continues to propagate its false narrative that TMTG has these fake connections to Russia. It is a hoax. Litigation will continue on this point and we are confident that The Guardian will ultimately be held responsible for its defamation and this story should be retracted.”) Also, on Wednesday, two Florida venture capitalists pleaded guilty to insider trading based on material, nonpublic information that special-purpose acquisition company Digital World Acquisition Corporation was going to buy Trump Media.

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