A whistleblower, Will Wilkerson, has accused former President Donald Trump of demanding that a part of his Social Truth platform be surrendered to his wife, Melania Trump. A former senior vice president of operations at the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), Wilkerson said that Trump called Social Truth co-founder Andy Litinsky from a coffee shop in Florida to make the request.
Trump demanded that Litinsky surrender his shares to the former First Lady, despite the fact that he (Trump) held 90% of the company shares. Given that the shares being requested are worth millions of dollars, Litinsky refused to surrender them because that would have left him with a huge tax bill he could not afford to pay.
Trump reportedly snapped back at Litinsky by telling him to “do whatever you need to do.”
Given that TMTG and Digital World Acquisition Corp are currently planning a merger, Wilkerson filed a whistleblower complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), accusing Truth Social of securities violation and requesting investigations into the planned merger.
Wilkerson said he was relieved of his position at Truth Social after speaking up to The Washington Post over the matter. He however alleged that Trump fired him to retaliate for his demands not being met by Litinsky and that his lawyers will take up the matter in the law courts. He said there are numerous emails and other documents that serve as evidence and that some of these have been filed with the SEC.
Wilkerson also alleged that Trump has employed former California Republican Congressman, Devin Nunes, as the CEO of his social media network to build a “culture of compliance.” When contacted by The Washington Post, Truth Social responded bitterly that the newspaper outlet “sent us an inquiry rife with knowingly false and defamatory statements and other concocted psychodramas.”
Trump and Litinsky met in 2004 when he was a contestant on The Apprentice TV show. The former president established Truth Social as his own social media platform after Facebook and Twitter banned his accounts following January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill insurrection. He currently has about 4 million followers on Truth Social, even though that is a far cry from the 86 million followers he enjoyed on Twitter.