Washington Post Report Alleges Further Mayhem at Trump Media

Cofounder was ousted for refusing to give shares to Melania, a former executive claims.

Rafael Henrique / SOPA Images

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that a former executive with Trump Media, which owns Donald Trump’s struggling social media platform, Truth Social, is alleging the company broke federal security laws, and that another executive was ousted for refusing Trump’s demand that he give his shares in the venture to Trump’s wife, Melania. 

Will Wilkerson, who was fired by Trump Media on Thursday, passed along hundreds of documents, photos, and audio files to the Washington Post and to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Post’s exclusive report details the chaos allegedly taking place at the company. 

The report details how cofounder Andy Litinsky was allegedly fired after refusing a personal demand by Trump, who already owned 90 percent of Trump Media shares, to give his shares to Melania. More broadly, the report portrays a company in disarray, one in which decisions were based not on logic or business savvy, but bitterness and spite. Five months after refusing Trump’s demands, writes tech reporter Drew Harwell… 

Litinsky, who first met Trump in 2004 as a contestant on the TV show “The Apprentice,” was abruptly removed from the company’s board. Wilkerson said he believes it was payback for his refusal to turn over a small fortune to the former president’s wife. Litinsky thought so, too, according to an email Wilkerson and his attorneys shared with The Washington Post and the Securities and Exchange Commission. In that email, Litinsky complained that Trump was “retaliating against me” by threatening to “ ‘blow up the company’ if his demands are not met.

Trump Media did not directly rebut any of Wilkerson’s claims, Harwell noted. Instead, it released a statement essentially accusing the Post of publishing fake news, and saying that…

Trump, as company chairman, had hired former congressman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) as CEO to “create a culture of compliance and build a world-class team to lead Truth Social.” The company said it was already a success, having launched on the Apple and Google app stores, “executed multiple feature updates” and attracted millions of users. “Ignoring these achievements, The Washington Post sent us an inquiry rife with knowingly false and defamatory statements and other concocted psychodramas.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate