Marty Davis, the president of a wealthy Minnesota kitchen counter manufacturing company, is an ardent supporter of former President Donald J. Trump. He donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to help elect Trump in 2020 and encouraged him to fight to overturn the 2020 election results.
Shortly after Trump's social media company announced plans to go public in October 2021 by merging with a well-funded shell company, Davis loaned the fledgling business millions of dollars to establish He was one of the first to survive until then. The merger was completed and funded the launch of the Truth Social platform.
Davis gave Trump Media & Technology Group a $5 million loan, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. His loan is part of the $40 million that Trump Media raised from more than a dozen individual investors, some of which helped finance Trump's election and is now owned by Trump. is likely to be a shareholder in a social media company.
It's not unusual for startups to seek out wealthy investors to raise capital, but holdings are raising questions about the potential for conflicts of interest or undue influence against Trump if he returns to the White House. is causing it.
Other early backers include two Texas billionaires, a Florida hedge fund manager and a trust company with ties to the nephew of a former Russian government official and a Russian-American owner of an offshore bank, according to the documents. etc. are included. One of the billionaires, former Dallas communications executive Kenny Trout, has donated more than $1.1 million to causes supporting Trump's three White House bids. Trout is co-chairing a major fundraiser for the former president in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday.
“This was the deal of the century,” said Massimo D'Angelo, a lawyer for Patrick Walsh, the Florida hedge fund manager who loaned Trump Media $6.2 million.
When Trump Media finally went public in March after completing its merger with Digital World Acquisition Corporation, early investors were able to make a sizable profit. Most of the loans were designed to convert into stock at about $22 per share, while Trump Media stock was trading at about $40. . It's unclear whether any of them sold their shares for cash.
Some Trump media supporters like Walsh have little or no political ties to the former president. For example, Karl Pflueger, an oil and gas billionaire and one of the biggest lenders to Trump Media, providing nearly $10 million, is a major donor to the Texas Republican Party, but Trump's prominent I'm not a big donor.
Trump Media spokeswoman Shannon Devine said, “The media is relying on documents provided by our detractors, who have a history of providing outdated, deceptive, and fabricated records to news organizations.'' should be cautious.”
Davis declined to comment. Pflueger, president of oil pipeline company Oryx Midstream Services, did not respond to requests for comment. Executives at Mr. Trout's family office, which signed the loan agreement, declined to comment. Trout, who currently breeds racehorses, loaned Trump Media $3 million through an affiliated company.
Mr. Trump, who owns 57% of Trump Media, did not personally spend a lot of money to get the company off the ground.
Ethics experts say that if Mr. Trump wins the White House and fails to unload his stake in Trump Media, foreign actors and special interests could open up entirely new avenues for trying to curry favor with Mr. Trump, including through ad buys. It is said that there is a possibility of opening. In real social.
At last count, Trump's stake was worth about $3 billion. Trump Media itself is now valued at about $5 billion, even though it lost $58 million last year and its sole source of income, Truth Social, generated just $4.1 million in advertising revenue. .
Roy Bailey, co-chairman of Trump's 2020 campaign who helped raise some of the money for Trump Media, declined to name any of the lenders. Mr. Bailey's Dallas-based company loaned Trump Media at least $33,000, according to loan agreements reviewed by the Times.
Wes Moss and Andy Litinksey, two of Trump Media's founders, oversaw the fundraising from outside investors. The two were former contestants on Trump's reality show, “The Apprentice.” They pitched the idea of ​​starting the company to Trump in January 2021 after he was banned from Twitter (now called X) in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. I pitched it to.
Mr. Moss and Mr. Liczynski signed most of the loan agreements on behalf of Trump Media, but are no longer affiliated with the company. They are battling Trump Media in court to keep their roughly 6% stake in the company.
Lawyers for both men declined to comment.
The loan agreement reviewed by the Times was provided by Stephen Bell, Philip Brewster and Patrick Mincey, attorneys for former Trump Media employee William Wilkerson. The agreement was included in thousands of pages of documents provided to the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with a whistleblower complaint filed by Wilkerson. Regulators were investigating whether Digital World violated securities laws by holding premature merger talks with Trump Media. Last summer, Digital World reached a settlement with the SEC, agreeing to pay an $18 million penalty.
Davis, a Minnesota businessman, provided $5 million to Trump Media through an unnamed limited liability company. He is one of Trump Media's most prominent financial backers.
Davis, a longtime Republican donor, successfully lobbied the Trump administration to impose tariffs on Chinese quartz in 2018 to combat damage to his company from illegal dumping. Although he did not donate to Trump's campaign in 2016, he donated about $350,000 to Trump's 2020 re-election campaign. In October 2020, he hosted a $100,000-per-person fundraiser for Trump. Minnesota house.
His efforts to pressure Trump to fight what he called a “rigged election” were revealed in a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. In a Dec. 9, 2020, text message to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Davis said he wanted to “tell him what I'm fighting for right now for the president.” He said there was a need to meet in the Oval Office. He further added that he “strongly supports 2024 even if he fails.”
A week later, he said he texted Meadows again and told Trump there was widespread illegal voting in Minnesota, a claim that state election officials disputed.
The most intriguing of Trump Media's investors is an entity called the ES Family Trust, which has lent up to $8 million in late 2021 and early 2022. The trust has ties to Anton Postolnikov, a Russian-American investor living in South Florida.Examining the divorce records of Mr. Postolnikov and his wife The Times suggests financial links to the ES Family Trust.
Until late last year, Mr. Postolnikov was the principal owner of Paxam Bank, a small bank based on the Caribbean island of Dominica, and transferred some of the loans to Trump Media, according to documents reviewed by the Times. . This bank processes payments to adult entertainment companies.
Postolnikov is the nephew of Alexander Smirnov, who served as a senior Russian government official for almost 15 years. As of two years ago, he was vice president of the state-owned company that manages the port.
A statement issued last year on Postolnikov's behalf denied that he had any ties to allies of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and said Russian websites were spreading lies about him. . Postolnikov came under scrutiny in an insider trading investigation by federal prosecutors that looked into Digital World Securities' trading before and after the merger was announced in 2021, according to filings related to the case. He has not been charged with any wrongdoing and his attorney declined comment.
kitty bennett, Rachel Shorey and Oleg Matznev Contributed to research.