Amongst their conversations was a gathering earlier this month in Palm Seashore, Fla., the place Trump met with Musk and some high-powered Republican donors, the folks mentioned. The topic of that dialogue isn’t clear however, after it was first reported by the New York Instances, which famous that the assembly occurred whereas Trump was on the lookout for marketing campaign contributions, the billionaire wrote on X that he’s “not donating cash to both candidate for US President.”
Musk, the world’s second-richest man, has more and more voiced help for conservative ideology on X, together with echoing Trump’s unverified claims that the Biden administration is, as Musk wrote final week, “importing voters and making a nationwide safety menace from unvetted unlawful immigrants.”
On the time of final summer season’s dialogue, Trump’s media firm, which owns Fact Social, was trapped in a long-delayed merger course of. Musk purchased X, then generally known as Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022.
When The Washington Put up requested Musk concerning the Fact Social name and his different talks with Trump, Musk responded solely that he had “by no means been to Mar-a-Lago,” Trump’s property in Palm Seashore.
Trump Media & Expertise Group didn’t deal with any of the details reported on this story when invited to take action by The Put up. In an emailed assertion, Trump Media spokeswoman Shannon Devine mentioned solely, “We heard Trump and Musk had been really discussing shopping for the Washington Put up however they determined it had no worth.”
A spokesman for Trump’s marketing campaign didn’t reply to a request for remark.
One of many causes Trump has not posted on X is that he needs to create and hold monetary worth for his Fact Social website, which he assiduously tracks, in keeping with folks near him.
He has relentlessly tried to market it, telling his advisers that he needs to interrupt information on the platform partially to usher in extra customers. “It’s scorching,” he says, usually polling guests to Mar-a-Lago about whether or not they have an account.
He has tweeted as soon as since leaving the Oval Workplace — solely his dour mug shot final yr from an Atlanta jail, the place he was booked on costs of making an attempt to overturn the 2020 election ends in the state.
On the time of the decision final summer season, Trump Media, which owns Fact Social, confronted a dim monetary outlook. In April, Trump had said in a monetary disclosure submitting for his presidential candidacy that his 90 p.c stake within the firm was price between $5 million and $25 million and that his revenue from it had been lower than $200.
Three months later, the corporate’s proposed merger accomplice, Digital World Acquisition Corp., announced that it had supplied to pay an $18 million settlement if the merger had been accomplished to settle costs by the Securities and Trade Fee that it had misled traders, additional casting doubt over the deal on the time.
However previously month, the SEC greenlit Digital World’s merger registration, setting the stage for Trump Media to change into a public firm doubtlessly price billions of {dollars}. That change may provide Trump a monetary lifeline as he faces lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in authorized penalties. Shareholders are anticipated to formally approve the merger throughout a vote later this month, however a lockup provision of the deal would require Trump to attend six months earlier than promoting any shares.
Musk as soon as belittled Fact Social, posting in 2022 that Trump’s website had a “horrible identify” and that it was “time for Trump to hold up his hat & sail into the sunset.”
Trump responded on Fact Social by posting a photograph of the 2 males within the Oval Workplace alongside a caption: When Musk visited “the White Home asking me for assistance on all of his many sponsored initiatives … I may have mentioned ‘drop to your knees and beg,’ and he would have accomplished it,” he wrote.
Musk, he added, “ought to deal with getting himself out of the Twitter mess,” saying the location was “maybe nugatory.”
Musk, nonetheless, publicly condemned Twitter’s banning of Trump’s account after the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. The positioning, underneath Musk, reactivated Trump’s account in late 2022.
Inside the previous yr, as Musk’s promotion of conspiracy theories and criticism of liberal causes as a “woke thoughts virus” have driven away users and advertisers, Musk has voiced enthusiasm about Trump’s means to win consideration on social media. In August, he said on X: “Individuals are clearly desirous about listening to from Trump. One could not agree with the person, however he’s by no means boring!”
He posted final week that “Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is a really actual illness.”
Trump has continued to insist to advisers and folks near him that Musk can buy Fact Social. If he selected to promote the platform, it may present him a a lot wanted money infusion, although the merger course of and lockup interval may complicate the deal.
Trump met with Musk after current judgments towards the previous president in two civil instances that will price him effectively over $500 million.
On Friday, Trump posted a $91 million bond to remain a judgment towards him in a defamation swimsuit introduced by the author E. Jean Carroll, which he’s interesting. In a fraud case introduced by the New York legal professional basic, Trump might want to pay penalties of more than $450 million or submit a bond of the identical quantity later this month to remain the judgment in that case throughout enchantment.
Trump has not mentioned the place he plans to get the cash. Few Wall Road banks have lent him substantial sums since his Trump-branded Atlantic Metropolis casinos started failing within the Nineties, and borrowing towards his properties could also be tough and costly to do in brief order, consultants mentioned. He lists 22 assets — most of them actual property — as valued at “over $50 million” every, in keeping with a submitting he made with the federal government in August, and dozens of different much less priceless properties. However he has made no public strikes to promote his finest actual property.
Trump’s attorneys have made quite a lot of filings in current days geared toward shopping for the previous president extra time to safe the wanted funds or a minimum of to scale back the quantity he should present.
They argued in court docket that even the world’s wealthiest folks can not give you half a billion {dollars} so rapidly.
“Nobody, together with Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, has 5 hundred million laying round,” Trump legal professional Christopher Kise argued earlier than an appeals court docket choose final week. (Bezos, the founding father of Amazon, owns The Put up.)
Faiz Siddiqui contributed to this report.
