Two former executives from the company that recently acquired Truth Social are embroiled in a lawsuit related to President Trump's acquisition of the social media company. wired I will report it. The former CEO of Digital World Acquisition Corporation (DWAC), a special purpose acquisition company formed to acquire Trump Media & Technology Group, has his personal account stolen as part of a “coup”. He is suing his successor on suspicion of hacking. ”
The details are quite rough. Patrick Orlando, who served as CEO of DWAC until March 2023, claims he was fired by Trump Media board member Eric Swider, who was appointed CEO shortly after Orlando was fired. (Mr. Swider served as CEO until March of this year.) Mr. Orlando filed the lawsuit against Mr. Swider through the Benessere Investment Group, which he controls, according to Swider. wiredThis is a report by
After Orlando was fired, the lawsuit alleges, Swider enlisted the help of his former personal assistant, Alexander Cano, to gain unauthorized access to Orlando's accounts. Cano allegedly accessed Box.com electronic storage accounts tied to Benessere and ARC Global Investments II, another fund organized by Orlando to finance the Truth Social acquisition deal. , which included login information for Orlando's Mailchimp and DocuSign accounts. as his confidential file. Cano passed “stolen information” to Swider, the complaint alleges.
Swider then used Orlando's Mailchimp account to send emails to ARC II investors about the Truth Social transaction after Orlando was fired, according to the complaint. “Mr. Orlando's leadership brought our common interests with DWAC directly under the jurisdiction of the SEC, the Department of Justice, resulting in lengthy delays and costly investigations,” Swider wrote. wired. “By filing this lawsuit against DWAC, Mr. Orlando is destroying the value that could be realized from the consummation of a business combination by the Company and its members.” Mr. Swider also warned investors that He invited them to a series of Zoom calls and asked them to “understand our risk exposure based on misinformation, withheld information, and leadership that continues to lead us down a path of self-treatment.”
Orlando's tenure at DWAC was certainly an eventful one. The planned merger of Trump Media and DWAC had been delayed for years, in part due to investigations by both the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal criminal investigators. These delays cost DWAC $100 million, CNBC reported in 2023.
