Marty Davis, the wealthy head of a kitchen-countertop manufacturing company in Minnesota, is a staunch supporter of former President Donald J. Trump. He contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to help elect Mr. Trump in 2020 and encouraged him to fight to overturn the 2020 election results.
Shortly after Mr. Trump’s social media company said in October 2021 that it planned to go public through a merger with a cash-rich shell company, Mr. Davis was one of the first to lend millions to the fledgling business to to be able to survive until The merger closed and will fund the launch of the Truth Social platform.
Mr. Davis gave Trump Media & Technology Group a $5 million loan, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. His loan was part of the $40 million Trump Media raised from more than a dozen private investors, some of whom helped fund Mr. Trump’s election efforts and are now potential shareholders in his social media company.
It is not unusual for start-ups to look to wealthy investors for funding, but the shares have raised questions about the potential for conflicts of interest and undue influence on Mr Trump should he return to the White House.
Other early backers include two Texas billionaires, a Florida hedge fund manager and a trust with ties to a Russian-American offshore bank owner who is the nephew of a former high-ranking Russian government official, the documents show. One of the billionaires, Kenny Troutt, a retired Dallas telecommunications executive, has given more than $1.1 million to efforts to support Mr. Trump’s three White House bids. Mr. Troutt is serving as co-chairman of a major fundraiser Saturday in Palm Beach, Fla., for the former president.
“It was the deal of the century,” said Massimo D’Angelo, a attorney for Patrick Walsh, a Florida hedge fund manager who loaned $6.2 million to Trump Media.
When Trump Media finally went public in March after its merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp. closed, those early investors reaped big profits: Most of the loans were designed to convert into stock at about $22 apiece; while Trump Media shares were trading around $40. It is not clear if any of them have cashed out by selling their shares.
Some Trump Media supporters, like Mr. Walsh, have little or no political connection to the former president. For example, Karl Pfluger, an oil and gas billionaire who was one of the biggest lenders to Trump Media, providing nearly $10 million, is a major donor to Texas Republicans, but not a prominent Trump donor.
Shannon Devine, a spokeswoman for Trump Media said: “The media should be wary of relying on documents provided by critics of our company who have a history of providing outdated, misleading and fabricated records to the press.”
Mr Davis declined to comment. Mr. Pfluger, who is president of Oryx Midstream Services, an oil pipeline company, did not respond to a request for comment. An executive at Mr. Trout’s family office, which signed the loan agreement, declined to comment. Mr. Troutt, who now breeds racehorses, made his $3 million loan to Trump Media through an affiliate.
Mr. Trump, who owns 57 percent of Trump Media, did not personally put up a significant amount of money to start the company.
Ethics experts have said that if Mr. Trump wins the White House and fails to divest himself of his stake in Trump Media, it could open a whole new avenue for foreign actors or special interests to try to curry favor with him, among others by purchasing ads on Truth Social.
At last count, Mr. Trump’s stake was worth about $3 billion. Trump Media itself is currently valued at about $5 billion, even though it lost $58 million last year and earned just $4.1 million from advertising on Truth Social, its only source of revenue.
Roy Bailey, the co-chairman of Mr. Trump’s 2020 campaign who helped raise some of the financing for Trump Media, declined to discuss any of the lenders. Mr. Bailey’s Dallas-based company loaned at least $33,000 to Trump Media, according to a loan agreement seen by the Times.
Wes Moss and Andy Litinksy, two of the founders of Trump Media, oversaw the fundraising from outside investors. The two men were former contestants on Mr Trump’s reality TV show ‘The Apprentice’. They had pitched Mr Trump the idea of ​​founding the company in January 2021, after it was launched by Twitter, now called X, in the wake of the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Moss and Mr. Litinsky had signed most of the loan agreements on behalf of Trump Media, but are no longer associated with the company. They are fighting in court with Trump Media to keep their roughly 6% stake in the company.
Lawyer for both men declined to comment.
The loan agreements reviewed by the Times were provided by Stephen Bell, Philip Brewster and Patrick Mincey, lawyers for a former Trump Media employee, William Wilkerson. The agreements were included in thousands of pages of documents provided to the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with a whistleblowing complaint filed by Mr. Wilkerson. The regulator was investigating whether Digital World had violated securities laws by engaging in early merger talks with Trump Media. Last summer Digital World reached a settlement with the SEC and agreed to pay an $18 million fine.
Mr. Davis, the Minnesota businessman, gave Trump Media $5 million through an obscure limited liability company. He is one of Trump Media’s most high-profile figures financial supporters.
A longtime Republican donor, Mr. Davis successfully lobbied the Trump administration to impose tariffs on quartz from China to counter what he said was damage to his company from illegal dumping. Although he did not contribute to Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, he gave about $350,000 to Mr. Trump’s 2020 re-election efforts. In October 2020, he hosted a $100,000-a-person fundraiser for Mr. Trump at the House in Minnesota.
His efforts to push Mr. Trump to fight the results of what he called a “corrupt election” came to light during a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 riot on Capitol Hill. In a Dec. 9, 2020 text message to Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, Mr. Davis said he needed an Oval Office meeting with the president to “tell him what I’m doing to fight for him now!” . He added: “Also, strongly support 2024 if he pulls through.”
A week later, he texted Mr. Meadows again, saying he had told Mr. Trump that widespread illegal voting had taken place in Minnesota — a claim that state election officials denied.
The most curious of all investors in Trump Media is an entity called the ES Family Trust that lent up to $8 million in late 2021 and early 2022. The trust has ties to Anton Postolnikov, a Russian-American financier who lives in South Florida. Divorce records for Mr. Postolnikov and his wife were reviewed from The Times, suggest a financial link with the ES Family Trust.
Until last year, Mr. Postolnikov was the principal owner of Paxum Bank, a small bank based on the Caribbean island of Dominica that funneled some of the loan money to Trump Media, according to documents reviewed by The Times. The bank processes payments for adult entertainment companies.
Mr. Postolnikov is the nephew of Aleksandr Smirnov, who served as a high-ranking official in the Russian government for almost 15 years. Two years ago, he was deputy head of a state-owned enterprise that managed ports.
A statement issued on behalf of Mr. Postolnikov last year denied that he was in any way associated with allies of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and said that Russian websites were spreading lies about him. Mr. Postolnikov drew scrutiny in an insider-trading probe by federal prosecutors looking into the trading of Digital World’s securities around the time the merger was announced in 2021, according to a filing related to the matter. He has not been charged with a crime and his attorney declined to comment.
Kitty Bennett, Rachel Sorey and Oleg Matsnev contributed to the research.
