After Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter revoked Donald Trump’s permanent ban, one would have expected the former president to rush at the opportunity to return.

However, he has not yet accepted this offer.

But why?

For Josh Tucker, a professor of politics at New York University: “The simplest explanation is the most likely: it’s about money”.

After being banned from Twitter, Donald Trump launched Truth Social, a social media network that looks very similar to Twitter.

To understand how bad Donald Trump’s money situation is, you have to know how Truth Social’s business is set up.

Last year, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the private business that runs Truth Social, declared its plan to combine with Digital World Acquisition Corp – (DWAC), a shell firm that trades on the stock market.

DWAC is a Special Purpose Acquisition Company, or SPAC. Spacs are promoted as a way to speed up the process of going public, which can take a long time. Simply put, it refers to the combination of two publicly traded companies.

Although the merger between TMTG and DWAC has been approved, it has not yet taken place. Nevertheless, investors continue to pour money into DWAC, all of them betting that the acquisition will close. Currently, the shell firm is worth more than $800 million.

Given that DWAC would only be purchasing approximately a quarter of TMTG, Mr Trump’s newly merging firm would be worth at least $3-4 billion, according to Michael Ohlrogge, a Spacs expert.

“He would own the vast majority. He would own probably 70 or 80% of it.”

If everything works out, Donald Trump’s business endeavor might rank among his most lucrative ones.

But the only way to keep the stock price high is to make sure that the former president stays on Truth Social.

Without Trump, it’s tough to understand the value of Truth Social. He founded the social media firm. If he’s not using it, why should his followers?

Truth Social is already having trouble gaining users. The portal saw eight million visitors in September 2022, down from 11.5 million in July, according to analytics company Similar Web. That’s ridiculously low for a social media company.

Similar Web reports that there were nine billion visitors to Twitter’s website in September.

If Donald Trump stopped posting or did it somewhere else, he might tank the share price of DWAC, which would make it worth hundreds of millions of dollars less.

The fact that Donald Trump had an exclusive deal with Truth Social was so important to the planned merger with DWAC that it was written into the agreement.

It says: “President Trump is generally obligated to make any social media post on Truth Social and may not make the same post on another social media site for 6 hours.”

It means that if Donald Trump scares off investors with his tweets, he could lose a lot of money and also get sued.

“It’s hard to say for sure who would win,” remarks Ohlrogge, “but it wouldn’t be a completely crazy suit to try to bring.”

This puts Donald Trump in a difficult situation. He may want to return to Twitter. However, he has financial and legal incentives to not do so.

But there are more forces at play that might prompt him to resume his tweeting.

First off, the share price of DWAC has been acting pretty strangely lately.

People have been buying DWA shares as a strategy to invest in the former president himself rather than just using it as a location where they may de facto invest in Truth Social.

For Michael Klausner, a professor of law at Stanford University: it as “a meme stock.” Meme stocks are shares of companies with a lot of small investors who follow them online or on social media. These investors can move the price of the shares up and down.

Many of Mr. Trump’s own fans have reportedly invested in DWAC, according to Klausner.

They believe that having Trump’s name associated with anything would increase its value, he claims.

This implies that DWAC stock rises when Donald Trump’s prospects improve and falls when they decline.

It went up on Monday, November 7, after it was said that he was planning to run for president in 2024. But when he finally told everyone nine days later in a speech that was called “low energy,” the stock price went down.

The idea here is that Donald Trump can use the merger between DWAC and Truth Social as a vehicle to publicly list himself as a brand in the form of stock. If so, it wouldn’t matter as much if Mr. Trump stopped using Truth Social since the social media platform just serves as a stand-in for the real person.

Josh Tucker from NYU thinks the situation raises some interesting questions about right and wrong.

“I have never personally heard of something like this before – that there is a large amount of money tracking what seems to be the political fortunes of a politician.”

He expresses concern that the politician will put financial considerations ahead of political ones and make decisions accordingly.

“If you’re a Republican, you might want your Republican nominee to use the media to the best of their ability,” he adds as cited by BBC.

According to Tucker, if Republicans choose Donald Trump as their candidate for president, they would want him to use several social media platforms in his campaigns rather than sticking to just one for financial benefit.

But it’s possible that Donald Trump saw this issue coming. There is another part of the merger agreement that lets him use other social media platforms for “political messaging.”

According to Klausner, there could be a “loophole” that would let Trump to tweet without breaking the agreement.

Ohlrogge claims that Mr. Trump is only obligated to use Truth Social exclusively for posting until July of 2023.

“My reading is after that point [legally] he’d be able post directly on Twitter, without posting first on Truth Social,” he adds.

Donald Trump may return to Twitter, according to another theory. The Federal government is now looking into the merger itself.

The agreement between Donald Trump and the company to only publish on Truth Social might yet fall through, in which case it would also be revoked legally.

Even if Mr. Trump would lose money, this would widen the window for his return to Twitter.

It’s complicated, just like a lot of Mr. Trump’s money matters. Additionally, Donald Trump is a difficult person to forecast.

However, we do know that if he remained only with Truth Social and completed the Spac merger, he would undoubtedly amass a fortune.

It’s difficult to believe that isn’t a significant influence on his views. As elections approach, will that calculation change?

It may. Mr. Trump says he’s staying for now.

Image Credit: Phelan M. Ebenhack for The Washington Post via Getty Images