Investors have pulled $138.5 million from the blank check company linked to Donald Trump’s Truth Social, and Digital World Acquisition Corp., which was supposed to deliver $1.3 billion to help the former president take on Twitter, has changed its address to a mailbox at a UPS store.
Digital World Acquisition said in a regulatory filing obtained by TheWrap that its address is now 3109 Grand Avenue #450 in Miami. “A search of the address brings up a UPS Store nestled between and Italian restaurant and a nail salon in the waterfront neighborhood of Coconut Grove,” The Financial Times reported.
The change of address came in the same disclosure filed Friday that said investors had been pulling cash from the venture, which has generally disappointed after pulling in far fewer users than hoped.
Trump reportedly has about 4 million followers on the site, a fraction of the 80 million he had before getting booted from Twitter after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
One impediment to growing the audience is the fact that Truth Social remains banned from the Google Play Store for insufficient content moderation. On Aug. 19, Google told Truth Social it found several violations of standard policies in its app submission and “reiterated that having effective systems for moderating user-generated content is a condition of our terms of service for any app to go live on Google Play,” the Android parent said in a statement.
That prevents Android users from downloading the app. Truth Social launched on the Apple App Store on Feb. 21.
Digital World Acqusition, formed in December 2021, initially raised $1 billion to fund Trump Media.
The disclosure came two weeks after Digital World Acqusition, which is a special purpose acquisition corporation, or SPAC, said it would pay nearly $2.8 million to extend the time it could complete the takeover of Truth Social to December. The funding came from CEO Patrick Orlando’s Arc Global Invesments II, according to CNBC.
The SPAC missed its previous deadline of Sept. 20 to close the deal, enabling investors to pull their funds out after failing to get enough shareholder support to move forward. Earlier this month, fewer than 65% of Digital World’s shareholders voted in favor of the proposal to add 12 months to the terms of the deal to take Truth Social public.
The deal also faces civil and criminal reviews, including from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is looking into whether the two companies violated securities laws in their discussions.
One former investor told CNBC they pulled financing because of the many legal obstacles facing the company, along with the underwhelming popularity of the platform.
