Devin Nunes Quits Congress To Run Trump Social Media

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., will resign from Congress to become chief executive of former President Donald Trump’s fledgling social media company next month, the group said Monday.

CNBC reports Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, will start as CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group, or TMTG, in January, the firm said in a press release.

Nunes, who boasts being a dairy farmer, will begin his new career despite having no apparent prior experience working in the tech industry or as an executive.

The press release came hours after documents revealed that the special purpose acquisition company — or SPAC — that plans to merge with Trump’s company is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC and another regulator had asked the SPAC, Digital World Acquisition Corp. or DWAC, for information about the lead-up to the deal with TMTG being announced.

Shares of DWAC rose more than 7% in after-hours trading following the announcement that Nunes had been tapped to lead TMTG.

Nunes is just the second member of the 117th Congress to resign before the end of his term. If the GOP regains majority control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections, Nunes would have been in line to become chairman of the powerful, tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

“I’m humbled and honored President Trump has asked me to lead the mission and the world class team that will deliver on this promise,” Nunes said in the press release.

Nunes, 48, has represented California’s 22nd congressional district in the San Joaquin Valley since 2003. The San Joaquin Valley Sun, which first reported Nunes’ departure from Congress, noted that California’s redistricting maps showed Nunes may have faced a tougher reelection fight in 2022.

In his final month in office, and just two days before the deadly Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol, Trump awarded Nunes the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Nunes was one of the 147 House Republicans who voted to challenge President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory after the pro-Trump mob had been cleared out of the building.

Trump’s company has shared generic, thinly detailed plans to launch a platform called “Truth Social,” which it presents as a future competitor of Twitter and other social media giants. On Saturday, TMTG and DWAC announced an agreement to raise $1 billion in “committed capital” from a group of unnamed investors in a so-called PIPE, or private investment in public equity, that would be received once the two firms consummated their deal.