Digital World Acquisition Corp. soars 14% as Trump's Truth Social surges to most downloaded on Apple's app store

• Digital World Acquisition soared 14% on Tuesday after Truth Social topped Apple's app store.
• The app launched ahead of schedule after its original February date was postponed to the end of March.
• Users of Truth Social were met with glitches and wait-listed shortly after the app's launch.

Digital World Acquisition Corp., the blank-check company that plans to merge with Truth Social, surged 14% on Tuesday after the social-media app launched on Monday.

Truth Social, which counts former President Donald Trump as its chairman and former Rep. Devin Nunes as its CEO, soared to the No. 1 downloaded app on Apple's app store as of Tuesday morning. But that strong demand led to reports of countless error messages and more than 100,000 interested users being wait-listed.

"Due to massive demand, we have placed you on our waitlist. We love you, and you're not just a number to us. But your waitlist number is below," a message greeted users after they created an account. Users who did create an account were unable to post or see the posts of other Truth Social users as of Tuesday morning.

Truth Social will mark Trump's return to social media after he was banned from various platforms including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube after the Capitol riot in 2021.

Truth Social was originally scheduled for a launch sometime in February, but expectations were pushed back after Nunes said the app would be fully operational by the end of March. Monday's release of the app was no doubt a pleasant surprise to Digital World investors.

Shares of Digital World Acquisition soared as much 62% to $137 in Tuesday's premarket trading session, but those gains have since been reduced, with the stock hovering just under $100. Despite Tuesday's surge, Digital World Acquisition is still trading 43% below its record high of $175 after investors piled into the company following news of its planned merger with Trump's social-media app late last year.

Truth Social represents a new crop of social-media apps that are targeting America's conservative base after years of alleged censorship by larger social-media companies. A special-purpose acquisition company that plans to merge with Rumble, a video-sharing platform with a conservative bent, surged earlier this month after it attempted to poach the podcast host Joe Rogan away from Spotify with a $100 million offer.