Trump Media Board Member Who Led SPAC Merger Sells Nearly All His Shares

Forbes Breaking News

Eric Swider, one of seven board members at Trump Media & Technology Group and a leader in the deal to take Truth Social public, has sold around 90% of his company stock—netting around $4.4 million before taxes—since November, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forbes staff writer Zach Everson joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss.

Transcript

00:00Hi everybody I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is my

00:07Forbes colleague, staff writer Zach Everson. Zach, thanks so much for joining me. Thanks for having

00:13me back. You are reporting that a Trump media board member has sold nearly all of his shares

00:20and the Trump media board member in question is Eric Swider. So talk to us about his history

00:26with Trump media. He started off as a member of the board of directors with Digital World

00:32Acquisition Corp. That is the blank check company that merged with Trump media and took it public.

00:40So first he was just a member of the board of directors, then he became the interim CEO,

00:44then he became the full-time CEO. And then after the merger went through, he stepped down from the

00:51CEO role, which is taken over from both companies by former Republican Congressman Devin Nunes.

00:55And Swider stayed on though, as a member of the board of directors.

00:59And Zach, you and I talked about that SPAC merger every step of the way. It was a saga that lasted

01:05over two years long. It was a merger between Digital World and Truth Social parent company,

01:10Trump Media. Talk to us about that merger because it wasn't without its own set of challenges.

01:15No, it was essentially the love island of financial mergers where, you know, it took 29 months to

01:22complete in the first place. That's not supposed to take that long. During that time, a former Digital

01:27World board member was convicted of insider trading. The company admitted to two years of unreliable

01:33financials, paid $18 million in penalties to the SEC for failing to disclose that its talks with Trump

01:40media had actually started before they were legally supposed to. And then after the merger finalized,

01:45we've continued to see some issues here where Trump Media's co-founders have sued over allegedly

01:50diluted stakes. Trump Media countersued those guys. Both of it's in pretrial motions right now.

01:56And then the company also had to replace its auditor after the SEC accused the accounting firm

02:01BF Orgers of, quote, massive fraud, which is never something you want to hear about your auditor.

02:06It involved more than 250 clients. It didn't just involve Trump Media.

02:09But that BF Orgers agreed to pay a $12 million fine and an industry ban. So it's there was a lot

02:17there's been a lot going on with this company. So a messy moment in time, for sure, that really

02:22lasted over two years. But now going back to Eric Swider, how many shares did he have? How much did he

02:29make selling them? What do the financials there look like? So he received about 150,000 shares when the

02:38merger took place in March 2024. And then he later received another 26,000 in January 2025 through an

02:46incentive plan. In November 2024, he sold most of those shares, 136,000 of them. And then over the

02:54last three or four months, he's been making additional sales, whittling his holdings down to

02:58about 17,500 shares. And is there any indication of why he's selling off these shares? I mean, he's

03:06offloading around 90%. You're shaking your head no. Tell us more.

03:11Right. He didn't comment to us. We didn't get a response from anybody else at Trump Media about it.

03:17There's no reason was given in these filings. Sometimes there is a reason. Devin Nunes has sold

03:21some of his shares, but there's always been a reason stated that this is just to cover withholding

03:27taxes that he has. So it's, you know, no cash goes to Devin Nunes. There's no reason like that is given

03:32here. So there's really just speculation. He is involved in another SPAC. He and Devin Nunes have

03:38watched a new one. I don't know if he's taking the money from this one to invest in that. And he

03:42didn't tell us. It doesn't look like he's commented publicly on it at all. I mean, zoom out for a second.

03:48What does it typically indicate when a board member of a company sells off most of their shares? Does that

03:55indicate anything? I mean, read the tea leaves. Right. It certainly could. It certainly could

03:59indicate that there are problems with the company. You know, in this instance, he is the only member

04:05of the board who seems to be selling his shares, telling that many of his shares. There's seven

04:09board members. The other six don't seem to really be doing much in terms of selling their shares.

04:14Trump hasn't sold any of his. You know, he still has his 115 million shares out there. So he hasn't

04:19sold any of his either. So not quite clear, you know, what's motivating Swider to sell his shares.

04:25And I mean, it's not exactly a vote of confidence seeing a board member offload 90 percent of their

04:31shares. How long is he on the board here? Is this also indicating he could be leaving soon?

04:37His term expires in 2027. So, you know, he's not leaving anytime soon. I mean,

04:42obviously, a board member can step down before their term ends, but he does have a couple more

04:47years remaining there to stay on the board. And you mentioned there's a sort of the band is

04:52getting back together of sorts between Eric Swider and Devin Nunes. They're involved in a

04:57new SPAC. What can you tell us there? Yeah, which is great. You know, we talked about all those

05:02problems that these two guys had when they last tried to merge firms and no, hey, we're doing it

05:07again. You know, maybe it just didn't work out well the first time. Lessons learned. Let's let's

05:11give it a second shot. It's called Retina's Tactical Acquisition Corporation. Believe is how you

05:17pronounce it. It's targeting acquisitions in crypto, cybersecurity and dual use tech.

05:22Which are sectors that have significant regulatory and government involvement,

05:27which, yes, means that the Trump administration could be involved in them. Now, there's no guarantee

05:30they're going to end up merging with a firm in those sectors. That's just what they're aiming for.

05:35Swider owns 50,000 shares in that enterprise directly and controls another 5 million through

05:40an LLC. So we'll see, you know, very interested to see who they end up merging with.

05:46And that's interesting that that SPAC is focused on crypto and cybersecurity because Trump media

05:52is also setting its sights on the crypto space. They're raising money to build a corporate Bitcoin

05:58reserve. Why now all of this focus on cryptocurrency?

06:01Money for nothing. You know, Trump famously said he didn't think crypto was great. It was basically

06:08thin air. And, you know, somewhere along the lines, on the line, he realized, hey, there's money to be

06:12made out of thin air. Why sell sneakers? And why should you just focus on that stuff in hats when you can,

06:16you know, sell crypto? So you're seeing this that he has multiple crypto ventures right now.

06:21You know, obviously, Trump media is launching. It's had a sale where it sold stock to institutional

06:30investors to bomb, which it used to start its own Bitcoin reserve. It's launching the Bitcoin ETFs.

06:36It talked about using a token in connection with its streaming platform. Separately, there's the

06:41Trump meme coin, which is available for purchase. There's also World Liberty Financial, which is

06:47Trump's decentralized finance endeavor. And that enterprise, you know, was selling tokens, which

06:52was kind of like an ownership stake in it. They were non-transferable. It just announced the other

06:57day that they are going to become transferable, which frees up Donald Trump and his family's stake

07:01of 22.5 billion tokens that they can use. And then also it has a stable coin, which is pegged to the

07:08dollar and backed with U.S. reserves, which the Trumps stand to profit from interest from those

07:14reserves. So, you know, we've got a lot of different areas that the presidents are ventured out into in

07:19the crypto area. And we are covering them all. Thank you so much, Zach. Until next time.

07:26I'm sure there'll be a next time soon. Thanks.

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