By Madeline Halpert, BBC
Donald Trump's lawyers say two executives mismanaged the company. Photo: Getty Images via AFP
Donald Trump is suing two co-founders of Trump Media, claiming they should lose their shares of the company for mismanaging his social media site.
The men, Wes Moss and Andy Litinsky, had already filed a suit against Trump in February to prevent him from reducing their 8.6 percent stake in the firm.
They pitched the idea of Truth Social following the Capitol riot, after Trump was banned from Twitter, now X.
Their shares are currently valued at about US$600 million (approx NZ$998m).
Both co-founders met Trump as contestants on NBC's The Apprentice reality show.
In the lawsuit, filed on 24 March in Florida state court, lawyers for the former president say Moss and Litinsky were in charge of Trump Media & Technology Group's daily operations, but "failed spectacularly at every turn".
Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) is the parent company of Truth Social.
"They made a series of reckless and wasteful decisions at a critical time that caused significant damage to TMTG and a decline in the stock price of its merger partner," Trump's lawyers wrote in the filing.
Trump's lawyers claim the two executives in particular slowed down the process of taking Trump Media public, including by finding an appropriate merger company.
TMTG went public last week through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.
Moss and Litinsky were not immediately available for comment.
In their February lawsuit, Moss and Litinsky claimed the former president was trying to reduce their stake in the firm by increasing the company's total number of shares from 120 million to 1 billion.
Trump founded TMTG in 2021 after he was kicked off of major social media platforms over his actions during the 6 January Capitol riot.
Moss and Litinsky suggested Truth Social as an alternative to mainstream social media sites. They later agreed to a deal in which Trump would own 90 percent of the platform when it was a private company.
Shares in Truth Social skyrocketed last week - surging as high as US$79 (approx NZ$131) - after Trump Media went public despite the business facing government investigations and other hurdles in its merger deal.
The stock price has since fallen considerably.
This story was first published by the BBC.
