Shares of company behind Trump’s Truth Social fall after Musk’s Twitter deal

Shares that are tied with the company funding former President Trump’s latest social media venture, Truth Social, took a dive on Monday after social media platform Twitter announced its deal with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. 

CNBC reported that Digital World Acquisition Corp.’s shares fell to nearly 13 percent on Monday, bringing the company’s year-to-date losses to more than 30 percent. 

Truth Social, which officially launched in February, was created by Trump after he was permanently banned from multiple social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram for actions involving the Jan.6 insurrection at the Capitol, CNBC noted. 

This comes as Twitter announced plans to sell itself to Musk, with the two sides reaching an agreement on the acquisition of the company worth up to $44 billion.

In an interview with Fox News published Monday, Trump said he has no plans to return to Twitter amid Musk’s move to acquire the social media platform, also applauding Musk for his acquisition of the asset. 

“I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on Truth,” Trump told the media outlet. 

Trump also told Fox News that Twitter has become a boring place due to conservatives’ accounts being suspended or banned from the platform. 

“[Twitter ] became very boring because conservatives were thrown off or got off the platform when I left,” Trump said. The bottom line is, no, I am not going back to Twitter.”

In a statement, the NAACP President Derrick Johnson urged Musk to keep Trump off of the platform. 

“Mr. Musk: free speech is wonderful, hate speech is unacceptable. Disinformation, misinformation and hate speech have NO PLACE on Twitter. Do not allow 45 to return to the platform,” Johnson said in his statement. 

“Do not allow Twitter to become a petri dish for hate speech, or falsehoods that subvert our democracy. Protecting our democracy is of utmost importance, especially as the midterm elections approach. Mr Musk: lives are at risk, and so is American democracy,” he added.