Former President Donald Trump has sued the co-founders of Truth Social, alleging they mismanaged the social media platform early on and should therefore lose their stock in the company, which recently went public.
In papers filed last week in Florida state court, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. argued that executives Wes Moss and Andy Litinsky made a series of costly mistakes that resulted in a long delay in the company’s going public and urged a judge to strip them of their shares in the company.
The pair, who were contestants on Trump’s NBC show “The Apprentice,” had pitched him on the idea of Truth Social after he was banned from what was then known as Twitter following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
“This was a phenomenal opportunity for Moss and Litinsky,” the suit says, adding that they were both “riding President Trump’s coattails.”
“Without President Trump, Truth Social would have been impossible,” the filing said.
The lawsuit, first reported by Bloomberg, said Moss and Litinsky were tasked with establishing corporate governance for the new company and finding a special purpose acquisition company that could take the new company public and fuel it with cash. It claimed they failed at both tasks.
The suit was filed March 24, after shareholders in Digital World Acquisition Corp. voted to merge with Trump Media & Technology Group, which is now called Trump Media. Trump is the majority shareholder.
An attorney for Moss and Litinsky’s company, United Atlantic Ventures, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Moss and Litinsky sued Trump’s company in Delaware Chancery Court in February, alleging that he was trying to dilute their shares by increasing the total number of authorized shares in the firm from 120 million to 1 billion.
Trump Media shares started trading March 26, and at one point the stock price exceeded $79. It has since fallen, closing at $51.60 on Tuesday. The decline came after the company reported a net loss of $58.2 million on revenue of $4.1 million in 2023.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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