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Former president Donald Trump has tapped Congressman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) to be CEO of his new media and tech company, Trump Media & Technology Group.
Nunes will retire from Congress and start as CEO of TMTG in January. He was one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress during his presidency, and was a frequent critic of tech companies.
The hiring of Nunes comes as Trump’s company faces an investigation from the SEC over its talks with Digital World Acquisition Company, the SPAC that TMTG is planning to merge with in order to go public.
However, the SPAC also raised $1 billion in PIPE financing to go along with the nearly $300 million it has from its IPO, forming a sizable war chest for Nunes as the company builds out its first product, a service similar to Twitter called Truth Social. The company also plans to launch a subscription streaming service led by Scott St. John, a veteran game show producer.
Truth Social is premised on being a social network that doesn’t discriminate or censor, but the hiring of Nunes is sure to raise eyebrows, given his aggressive litigation strategy. Nunes has sued Twitter over parody accounts (Trump’s DOJ even subpoenaed Twitter over the accounts), and he’s sued several media outlets, including CNN, for libel.
Trump, in a statement, said that Nunes “understands that we must stop the liberal media and Big Tech from destroying the freedoms that make America great.”
“The time has come to reopen the Internet and allow for the free flow of ideas and expression without censorship,” Nunes added in a statement Monday. “The United States of America made the dream of the Internet a reality and it will be an American company that restores the dream.”
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