Trump social media merger hit with grand jury subpoenas

Donald Trump.
(Image credit: JIM WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

The special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, merging with former President Donald Trump's social media company has been hit with subpoenas from a federal grand jury in New York, The New York Times reports Monday, per a regulatory filing.

The subpoenas were issued to Digital World Acquisition and its directors within the past week, the Times reports. The merger between Digital World and Trump Media & Technology Group — after which Trump Media would "assume Digital World's listing and trade as a public company" — has been under investigation by regulators for months, the Times adds.

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The Securites and Exchange Commission's investigation into the merger between Digital World and Trump Media is concerned with whether leaders of each company talked seriously before the SPAC went public and why the talks weren't disclosed. SPACs "are not supposed to have an acquisition target in mind when they raise money from investors," the Times writes.

Grand jury subpoenas are usually linked to a possible criminal investigation. Read more at the The New York Times.

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Brigid Kennedy

Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.