Trump Media Pivots Toward Fusion Energy With $6 Billion Deal

The Trump family is taking its multi-billion dollar social media company in a new direction by investing in the embryonic but potentially world-changing field of nuclear fusion.Trump Media & Technology Group and TAE Technologies are planning to merge and work together toward a goal of building the world’s first utility-scale energy-producing fusion power plant.TAE has spent 25 years working on fusion reactor development and says it has built five experimental fusion reactors, though none has yet generated more energy than it consumed.“We are ready to move toward utility scale,” the TAE CEO, Michl Binderbauer, said on a Thursday conference call. “We plan to move fast.”The combined company hopes to capitalize on the growing need for new power generation required by Artificial Intelligence data centers.Fusion promises to create abundant carbon-free electricity without the potential risks of nuclear fission, which drives all existing nuclear power plants, but it is unproven as an economically feasible energy source. Only in the past few years have scientists been able to generate more energy than was consumed in a laboratory setting.The Department of Energy recently created an Office of Fusion as part of a reorganization. It has an aim to push the commercialization of fusion.More than $6 billion has been invested in fusion research over the past several decades. The target date for the first fusion power plants is in the early 2030s according to the Fusion Industry Association.The all-stock transaction is valued at more than $6 billion. The merger gives it access to Trump Media’s significant capital. Trump Media will provide up to $200 million in cash to TAE at signing and an additional $100 million will be available after regulatory filings.Shareholders of each company will own approximately 50 percent of the combined company. Trump Media will be the holding company. Its stock jumped more than 25 percent in pre-market trading but its price is still significantly lower than its January high when President Trump reentered the White House.The combined company will be managed by a nine-member board of directors, including Donald J. Trump Jr. Big Sky Partners founder Michael B. Schwab is expected to be named chairman. TAE has already raised more than $1.3 billion in private capital from Google, Goldman Sachs, Charles Schwab, and several other sources.“Fusion power will be the most dramatic energy breakthrough since the onset of commercial nuclear energy in the 1950s — an innovation that will lower energy prices, boost supply, ensure America’s A.I.-supremacy, revive our manufacturing base and bolster national defense,” Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes said in a statement.

Trump Media Pivots Toward Fusion Energy With $6 Billion Deal

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