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Jeff Yass, the billionaire Wall Street financier and Republican megadonor who’s a significant investor within the dad or mum firm of TikTok, was additionally the most important institutional shareholder of the shell firm that not too long ago merged with former President Donald J. Trump’s social media firm.
A December regulatory submitting confirmed that Mr. Yass’s buying and selling agency, Susquehanna International Group, owned about 2 % of Digital World Acquisition Corp., which merged with Trump Media & Technology Group on Friday. That stake, of about 605,000 shares, was value about $22 million based mostly on Digital World’s final closing share worth.
It’s unclear if Susquehanna nonetheless owns these shares, as a result of massive buyers disclose their holdings to regulators solely periodically. But if it did retain its stake, Mr. Yass’s agency would develop into one in every of Trump Media’s bigger institutional shareholders when it begins buying and selling this week following the merger.
Shares of Digital World have surged about 140 % this yr because the merger with the dad or mum firm of Truth Social, Mr. Trump’s social media platform, drew nearer and Mr. Trump grew to become the presumptive Republican nominee for president.
“Susquehanna is a market maker and has zero financial curiosity in Trump Media,” stated the corporate in a press release. “The agency’s lengthy place is offset by quick positions of the identical measurement.”
Regulatory filings present the agency used offsetting securities to attempt to decrease its beneficial properties or losses within the inventory.
The firm assertion didn’t touch upon whether or not the agency nonetheless owned a stake in Digital World, or on the connection between Mr. Yass and Mr. Trump.
Mr. Yass has been within the information not too long ago for a number of causes. An enormous contributor to Republican candidates and political motion committees that help libertarian and conservative causes, together with the Club for Growth, Mr. Yass’s agency can also be an enormous shareholder in ByteDance, TikTok’s dad or mum firm. The U.S. funding corporations Susquehanna, BlackRock and General Atlantic and others personal 60 % of ByteDance.
This month, the House handed a invoice to drive ByteDance to promote TikTok, the Chinese-controlled social media firm.
The Club for Growth has sought to foyer Republicans in Congress to oppose any try and ban TikTok if it was nonetheless managed by China, and Mr. Yass has helped the conservative group fund that effort. (The Club for Growth had opposed Mr. Trump’s re-election marketing campaign, however seems to have reconciled with him.)
Mr. Trump had supported banning TikTok within the United States, however he not too long ago reversed his stance. Just a few weeks in the past, he acknowledged having a quick assembly with Mr. Yass — recognized in a 2022 Wall Street Journal column as a “by no means Trumper” — however stated the 2 males by no means mentioned TikTok.
An individual near Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign stated that Mr. Yass was anticipated to offer a big donation to a gaggle supporting the previous president’s political marketing campaign. Mr. Yass stated via a spokesman that he had by no means given to Mr. Trump and had no plans to take action.
Susquehanna, which facilitates trades in 1000’s of shares utilizing mathematical fashions, isn’t the one agency that stands to make cash on Digital World. In February, Digital World disclosed that it raised $50 million from a gaggle of institutional buyers to cowl bills associated to the merger. The buyers lent the corporate cash that may be transformed into shares. The buyers within the deal have but to be disclosed.
Overall, hedge funds and buying and selling corporations owned round 5 % of Digital World’s 30 million shares excellent on the finish of final yr. The overwhelming majority of Digital World’s roughly 400,000 shareholders are particular person buyers, lots of them supporters of Mr. Trump.
The surge within the worth of Digital World shares this yr has boosted the worth of Mr. Trump’s 79-million-share stake in Trump Media by billions of {dollars}. Mr. Trump can also be being issued a category of shares that may give him at the least 55 % voting energy over all shareholder measures.
The merger was finalized simply earlier than Mr. Trump’s Monday deadline to safe a bond to cowl a $454 million penalty imposed by a judge in a civil fraud case.
The former president’s Trump Media shares might present him with a monetary lifeline to boost the money wanted to get a bond. But to do this, he wants Trump Media’s seven-member board to take away a restriction that stops him from promoting shares or utilizing shares as collateral for a bond for the subsequent six months.
The board contains Mr. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr., and three former members of his administration: Kash Patel, who was the chief of workers to Mr. Trump’s performing secretary of protection; the previous U.S. commerce consultant Robert Lighthizer; and Linda McMahon, a former administrator of the Small Business Administration.
Ms. McMahon is a chair of an enormous fund-raiser for Mr. Trump scheduled for April 6 in Palm Beach, Fla., in line with a duplicate of the invitation. The occasion is co-hosted by John Paulson, the billionaire investor, and contains numerous Wall Street financiers as chairs. Mr. Yass isn’t talked about as one in every of them.
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
