 Welcome back to Dry Powder, I'm William D. Cohan.
Thanks as always for following my work here at Puck. As a reminder, you're receiving the free version of Dry Powder at .
In today's email: Donald Trump, Letitia James, D.E. Shaw, Alan Weisselberg, Chamath Palihapitiya, and an army of financial regulators. For full access, there's the subscribe button below.
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 The smart money has already pulled out of Trump’s SPAC circus, just as Chamath Palihapitiya dumped his stake in Virgin Galactic. Plus: Is the Nasdaq nearing its bottom? The attempted launch of Truth Social, the flagship social media app produced by Trump Media & Technology Group, appears to have been a glitch-ridden embarrassment, as documented by my partner Tina Nguyen. Of course, that didn’t stop Digital World Acquisition Corp., the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, that is taking TMTG public, from popping 17 percent on the news. DWAC, which is being investigated by the S.E.C. and FINRA for potential insider trading preceding the merger announcement, was already trading at about nine times its I.P.O. price in a fit of late-cycle meme-stock hysteria reminiscent of AMC, GameStop and Virgin Galactic. We know how those stories ended.
Indeed, some of the smart money behind DWAC appears to have already taken its winnings and gone home. D.E. Shaw, which owned shares worth hundreds of millions of dollars in Donald Trump’s SPAC, has sold its entire stake, according to recent filings, presumably for a tidy profit. For some, it was a peculiar transaction, given that the company’s eponymous founder, the legendary David E. Shaw, is a Democrat who gave millions to Hillary Clinton’s election campaign. So why did the firm make the bet?
Pretty simple: to make money. That mission accomplished, why wait around any longer to try to squeeze the last drops out of the lemon, especially given Trump’s perfectly awful last week, which seems to be inching him closer and closer to legal peril...
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FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT  The company behind the tokens abruptly shelved plans for more, but a mysterious new push could be smoke and mirrors. MATTHEW BELLONI  Either way, foreign policy experts in D.C. are already discussing how this crisis could forever reshape the region—and the world. JULIA IOFFE  Plus updates on WarnerMedia’s other legal headache, Bill Cosby’s future, and the MLB’s nightmare spring. ERIQ GARDNER  Notes on Wall Street’s new streaming math, GE fan fiction, and Ford’s meme-stock temptation. WILLIAM D. COHAN
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