Digital World Acquisition Corp. jumps as the SPAC gets more time to gather shareholder approval to extend a merger deadline with Donald Trump's Truth Social

• DWAC shares rose Friday as the SPAC got more time to get approval to extend a key deadline.
• The SPAC will work until October 10 to win shareholder support to extend its merger deadline.

Shares of Digital World Acquisition Corp. advanced Friday after the blank-check company continued to seek shareholder support to extend a deadline to merge with Donald Trump's media company.

The company on Thursday set a new deadline of October 10 to gather shareholder votes. It adjourned special shareholders' meetings on September 6 and on September 8 at which investors had expected to hear vote-count results.

Digital World shares rose as much as 7.9% to $25.20 in premarket trade then pared the gain to 3.5%. The stock has lost more than 6% over the past week and has declined by 47% during 2022.

The special purpose acquisition company needs 65% of shareholders to vote in favor of giving the company more time to complete a merger with Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs the former US president's Truth Social networking platform. Without sufficient shareholder support, Digital World faces liquidation and would have to return money it had raised in its initial public offering.

Digital World will now seek a 12-month extension to complete a deal by December 8, 2023, after previously aiming for September 8, 2023. The latest move is being made possible by a $2.8 million deposit into Digital World's trust account by ARC Global Investments II LLC, a company controlled by Patrick Orlando, the CEO of Digital World.

"This is the first of two three-month extensions available under the Company's current governing documents," Digital World said in a statement Thursday. The deposit represents an additional $0.10 per public share, it said.

"We continue to strongly believe that a stockholder vote to approve a one-year extension is important and in the best interests of our stockholders," Orlando said in the statement. "We are going to keep the vote open to permit, to the best of our ability, all of those stockholders who want to vote -- whether a large institution, medium size stockholder, or a small retail stockholder with a single share -- to have their vote counted."

If a deal were to be finalized, Trump's media company stands to receive $293 million from Digital World as well as $1 billion committed by investors in the form of a private investment in public equity, or PIPE.