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Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport after surrendering at the Fulton County jail on August 24, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump posted to X, formerly Twitter, for the first time since his suspension from the platform, returning to share his mugshot in the Georgia election interference case.

The post Thursday raises the question of whether X will become an important channel for Trump’s election efforts moving forward. The former president has more than 86 million followers on the platform.

Trump’s last tweet is from Jan. 8, 2021, announcing he would not attend the inauguration of President Joe Biden that month. Trump was soon after kicked off the platform entirely as Twitter’s leaders at the time feared he could further incite violence there, following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol two days prior.

He moved to his own social media platform, Truth Social, created by the Trump Media & Technology Group. When billionaire Elon Musk took over Twitter, and eventually reversed the permanent ban on Trump, the former president didn’t even return to the service, sticking with Truth.

Thursday was the first time Trump has broken his silence on the social network since being reinstated. He shared his mugshot taken earlier that day with the words “NEVER SURRENDER!” and then the address for his website raising money for his presidential campaign.

Still, Trump posted on Truth after sharing the mugshot on X, “I LOVE TRUTH SOCIAL. IT IS MY HOME!!!”

Shares of Digital World Acquisition Corp, which is seeking to take TMTG public via merger, were down more than 3% Friday morning.

Trump is being charged in Georgia with several alleged crimes, including racketeering and fraud, related to his efforts to maintain the presidency after he lost the 2020 election.

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Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses revenue tripled over the year, EssilorLuxottica says

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Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses revenue tripled over the year, EssilorLuxottica says

Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses on display in the window of a Ray Ban store in London, UK, on Friday, July 19, 2024. 

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Revenue from sales of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses more than tripled year over year, EssilorLuxottica revealed Monday as part of the company’s most recent earnings report.

EssilorLuxottica said the success of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, built via a partnership with the Facebook parent stemming back to 2019, contributed to its first-half overall sales of 14.02 billion euro (US$16.25 billion), which represents a 7.3% year-over-year jump.

“We are leading the transformation of glasses as the next computing platform, one where AI, sensory tech and a data-rich healthcare infrastructure will converge to empower humans and unlock our full potential,” EssilorLuxottica CEO Francesco Milleri and deputy CEO Paul du Saillant said in a joint-statement. “The success of Ray-Ban Meta, the launch of Oakley Meta Performance AI glasses and the positive response to Nuance Audio are major milestones for us in this new frontier.”

In the earnings report, the company said that its new Oakley Meta smart glasses, unveiled in June, represents the latest product line to come from its partnership with the social media company. CNBC reported in June that Meta and Luxottica plan to debut a Prada-branded version of its smart glasses in the future.

Luxottica owns several well-known brands including Ray-Ban, Oakley, Vogue Eyewear and Persol.

In September, Meta renewed a long-term partnership agreement with Luxottica to “collaborate into the next decade to develop multi-generational smart eyewear products,” according to the announcement.

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MicroStrategy copycats are getting out of control as Canadian vape company joins fray

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MicroStrategy copycats are getting out of control as Canadian vape company joins fray

The logos of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether outside a cryptocurrency exchange in Istanbul, Turkey, on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. 

David Lombeida | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The crypto market’s bullishness may be tipping into speculative frenzy, if the latest MicroStrategy-style copycat is any indication.

On Monday, a little-known Canadian vape company saw its stock surge on plans to enter the crypto treasury game – but this time with Binance Coin (BNB), the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market cap, excluding the dollar-pegged stablecoin Tether (USDT), according to CoinGecko.

Shares of CEA Industries, which trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker VAPE, rocketed more than 800% at one point after the company announced its plans. CEA, along with investment firm 10X Capital and YZi Labs, said it would offer a $500 million private placement to raise proceeds to buy Binance Coin for its corporate treasury. Shares ended the session up nearly 550%, giving the company a market cap of about $48 million.

Given the more crypto-friendly regulatory environment this year, more public companies have adopted the MicroStrategy playbook of using debt financing and equity sales to buy bitcoin to hold on their balance sheet to try to increase shareholder returns, pushing bitcoin to new records.

Now, with the S&P 500 trading at new records, the resurgence of meme mania and a pro-crypto White House supporting the crypto industry, investors are looking further out on the risk spectrum of crypto hoping for bigger gains.

In recent months, investors have rotated out of bitcoin and into ether, which led to a burst of companies seeking a similar treasury strategy around ether. SharpLink Gaming, whose board is chaired by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, was one of the first to make the move. Other companies like DeFi Development Corp, renamed from Janover, are making similar moves around Solana.

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Trump Organization says Amazon, Walmart, eBay sellers are hawking knockoff shirts, hats, mugs

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Trump Organization says Amazon, Walmart, eBay sellers are hawking knockoff shirts, hats, mugs

Donald Trump

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The Trump Organization has filed a lawsuit against unnamed online merchants it said are hawking counterfeit merchandise promoting President Donald Trump.

In the suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Florida, the company accused the merchants of selling “inferior imitations” of Trump-branded products on several online marketplaces, including Amazon, Walmart and eBay.

The Trump Organization company, which is owned by Trump, sells a variety of branded merchandise through its website, including a gold T1 smartphone. The Trump Organization alleges the online merchants didn’t license its trademarks and weren’t authorized resellers of genuine merchandise.

“By selling counterfeit products that purport to be genuine and authorized products using the TRUMP trademarks, defendants cause confusion and deception in the marketplace,” the complaint says.

Coffee mugs, hats, t-shirts and sweatshirts emblazoned with “Trump,” “Trump 2028,” and American flags were among the examples of alleged knockoffs listed in the suit.

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The Trump Organization intends to file a motion to seal an exhibit listing the merchants’ identities, according to the complaint.

The company is seeking to prevent the merchants from using Trump trademarks. It also asks a judge to compel Amazon and other online marketplaces to destroy the alleged counterfeit goods and close the merchants’ selling accounts.

Representatives from Amazon, Walmart and eBay didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Amazon, Walmart and eBay all operate thriving online marketplaces that allow third-party businesses to list and sell goods. The companies have all battled issues in the past around the sale of inauthentic or unsafe goods on their platforms.

Amazon sellers looked to cash in on Trump’s return to the White House earlier this year.

Sales of Trump-branded merchandise, including calendars, toilet paper and greeting cards, spiked in January, according to e-commerce marketing company Omnisend, which collected its data from seller software provider JungleScout.

In the lead-up to last year’s election, Amazon sellers made $140 million from Trump-related merchandise and $26 million from products promoting presidential candidate and former Vice President Kamala Harris, Omnisend found.

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