Devin Nunes has resigned from Congress to become CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group

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

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

Nunes, who prides himself on being a dairy farmer, will begin his new career despite having no clear 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 planning to merge with Trump’s company was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC and another regulator have asked SPAC, Digital World Acquisition Corp. or DWAC, for information about initiating the announced deal with TMTG.

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

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

“I am humbled and honored that President Trump has asked me to lead the mission and the world class team to fulfill this commitment,” Nunes said in the press release.

A congressman’s spokesman did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

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, said the change maps of the California district showed that Nunes could face a tougher fight against re -election in 2022.

Nunes led the House Intelligence Committee from 2015 to 2019, when Republicans controlled the chamber. He gained a reputation as a staunch defender of Trump during the lawyer’s special investigation of Russia’s election interference and possible coordination between Russia and Trump’s campaign, and later on Trump’s first impeachment in the House. .

In his last month in office, and just two days before the deadly attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, Trump awarded Nunes the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Nunes was one of 147 House Republicans who voted to challenge President Joe Biden’s victory at Electoral College after the pro-Trump mob was ousted from the building.

Trump’s company has shared generic, thinly detailed plans to launch a platform called “Truth Social,” which it has presented 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 so-called PIPE, or private public equity investment, that will be received when the two companies their deal.

Nunes’s autobiography on his congressional website shows little experience in his pre-congressional career that clearly transitions to the job of a tech CEO.

His bio notes that he worked from childhood on a family farm, and that he bought farmland with his brother after starting a harvesting business with the savings he had accumulated from raising cattle. as a teenager.

Nunes graduated from California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo with a bachelors degree in agricultural business and a masters degree in agriculture. Before running for Congress, former President George W. Bush in 2001 tapped Nunes to serve as California’s director of rural development for the federal Department of Agriculture.

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