Donald Trump Said to Step Down as Director of Media Group in June, Weeks Before SEC Subpoena

Former U.S. President Donald Trump was removed as a director from the board of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) last month, state documents showed, weeks before the firm was served with subpoenas from federal authorities.

The document from the Florida Department of State Division of Corporations, dated June 8, also showed that Donald Trump Jr and Kashyap Patel were removed as directors.

Truth Social, the social media platform owned by the company, said in a post that Donald Trump still remains on the board of TMTG.

TMTG did not respond to a Reuters request for further details on the filing.

The company received a subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 27 and another subpoena from a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York on June 30, regulatory filing showed last week.

TMTG agreed to merge with blank-cheque firm Digital World in October and the deal was expected to close by the second half of this year.

The SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority have been investigating the deal since late last year. On June 13, Digital World said the SEC had sought more information on the deal. The SEC has been looking into whether Digital World broke rules by having substantial talks about buying Trump's company starting early last year before Digital World sold stock to the public for the first time in September. Just weeks later it announced it would be buying Trump's company.

Trump's social media offering, called Truth Social, launched in February. It said it is fighting Big Tech limits on speech. Trump was banned from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube last year after the January 6 Capitol riot.

Trump Media last year lined up dozens of investors to pump $1 billion (roughly Rs. XXX crore) into the company, but can't get the cash until the Digital World acquisition is completed. An additional $300 million (roughly Rs. XXX crore) would come from Digital World itself.