Litinsky tried to brush it off, telling Trump “the gift would have meant a huge tax bill he couldn’t pay,” Wilkerson said in an interview. “Trump didn’t care. He said, ‘Do whatever you need to do.’ ”
Five months later, 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.”
Litinsky did not respond to emails and phone messages. It is unknown whether he still retains his shares.
The email — one of hundreds of previously unreported company messages, documents, photos and audio recordings that Wilkerson has provided to the SEC in connection with a whistleblower submission — reveals a stunning portrait of the animosity that has built up inside Trump Media since its high-profile debut last year.
Promoted as the centerpiece of Trump’s post-presidential business ambitions, the company had marketed itself as a budding media empire, with enterprises planned in social media, video streaming, live events and online payments — a powerful rival not just to Twitter but Disney, Google and Amazon.
But inside the company, Wilkerson said, those plans gave way to bitter infighting, technical failures and a chaotic jockeying for power among Trump allies that undermined its potential and left some employees crying at their desks.
Wilkerson, who was fired from his job Thursday as a senior vice president of operations at the company after he spoke to The Post, filed the whistleblower complaint with the SEC in August. The complaint, drafted by Wilkerson’s attorneys, alleges that the company’s bid to raise money via an investment vehicle known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, relied on “fraudulent misrepresentations … in violation of federal securities laws.”
The SEC, a federal watchdog agency, allows members of the public to submit tips, complaints…
Read More: Whistleblower Will Wilkerson reveals the turmoil inside Trump’s Truth