Throughout his second stint in the Oval Office, Donald Trump has raked in over a billion dollars on the backs of his most loyal acolytes. Some of his grifts harken back to the Trump cons of yesteryear, like the spectacularly cringeworthy Trump Mobile smartphone, a “made in America” device that was, predictably, produced entirely in China.
Most of the president’s most successful pulls, however, are predicated on either the cryptocurrency market, where winner-take-all scams are the name of the game, or fly-by-night stock offerings that get a temporary boost from the business mogul’s endorsement. And as Trump pulls the billion-dollar ladder out from under him time and again, his ride-or-dies are starting to crack.
One superfan, Vadim Fistikan, spoke to Forbes about what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a presidential con job. After painstakingly saving over $100,000 to buy a house near his family, Fistikan, a truck driver by trade, got wind of the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, being built around the president’s Truth Social social network.
“I’m like, ‘I’m getting in,’” Fistikan told Forbes. At its peak, the trucker’s investment in the president’s social media firm reached $205,000 — a life-changing amount of money for a working class person in the United States. Today, Fistikan told the publication his investment is worth a dismal $30,000.
“I’m like, ‘hey, this is a scam,’” he told Forbes. “And a lot of people were like, ‘no, you’re just a Trump hater.’ I’m like, ‘no. I was on board since day one… I’m now broke.”
For anyone who’s heard of a SPAC before, it’s not hard to see why. A SPAC is a dubious type of investment vehicle commonly used by celebrities to take private companies public. First, the day-one sponsors — like Trump — raise money from day-two rubes through a shell company. Once the SPAC has enough capital behind it, the paper entity will merge with an actual private corporation like Truth Social to go public.
The end result is a situation where the earliest adopters rake in mountains of cash — and their acolytes are often left holding the bag.
Donald’s son, Trump Jr, took a SPAC for a spin back in 2025, raising $179 million from supporters to take the ecommerce firearm website GrabAGun public. Though GrabAGun made its public debut trading at $21.40, the company’s share price quickly plummeted to $13.20 within the first day as trading volume went through the roof — indicating that early backers were fleeing like rats on a sinking ship.
Today, GrabAGun sells at just $2.88 per share; just one of the many scams the Trump dynasty has left in its wake since returning to power.
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