Trump’s ‘Non-Woke’ Twitter Alternative Plans To Launch February 21

Topline

Trump Media and Technology Group, former President Donald Trump’s new company, indicated Thursday it’s planning to launch a social media platform February 21, more than a year after Trump was bannedTwitter and Facebook.

Screenshots of Truth Social by a developer for Donald Trump’s upcoming social media platform.

tmtg/apple app store

Here are some key facts

On the Apple App Store listing, Truth Social is displaying a release date of February 21, 2019. (Reuters reported this release date first).

Developers described a suite of features similar to those offered by Twitter: The ability to like and share text-based posts, exchange private messages and scroll a “Truth Feed.”

In the platform’s App Store listing, developers claimed that Truth Social will be inclusive toward all ideologies, providing a place where liberals, conservatives and libertarians can have an “amazing time” together in spite of their differing opinions.

Surprising Truth

CNBC reported Truth Social had missed an invitation-only beta test deadline in November.

Important Background

Trump has been in permanent bannedTwo days following the Jan 6, 2021 Capitol Riot, Trump took to Twitter in response to tweets he made about President Joe Biden’s inauguration and his 2020 presidential campaign. Trump later decried the decision as an expression of “wildly aggressive censorship and ‘cancel-culture,’” and predicted that users would desert Twitter for other platforms. In October, he unveiled Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), which plans to go public by merging with blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corp., and is aiming to launch a conservative-friendly social media app and a “non-woke” subscription service offering news and entertainment content in the form of video and podcasts. Republican Devin Nunes (R.-Calif.), Trump’s close ally, left Congress Tuesday to lead the company. DWAC’s share price leaped nearly 400% one day after the merger announcement, with trading halted multiple times due to volatility, and shares closed at a high of $94.20 a day later, though the price has dropped since then and closed at $60.27 on Thursday. Trump’s company also said last month it raised $1 billion from unnamed institutional investors, part of a private investment in public equity (PIPE) transaction.

Tangent

The Securities and Exchange Commission and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority launched inquiries in December into the proposed TMTG/DWAC merger. DWAC filed last month.