President Donald Trump’s social media and cryptocurrency company is adding clean energy to its balance sheet in a $6 billion merger with fusion power company TAE Technologies. The deal comes as tech companies are turning to the experimental energy to satisfy the growing demands of artificial intelligence data centers.
Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, and Google-backed TAE Technologies announced the all-stock merger on Thursday.
The partnership is aimed at leveraging Trump Media’s “access to significant capital” and TAE’s “leading fusion technology” to create one of the world’s first publicly traded nuclear fusion companies, according to the news release.
It’s an ambitious venture with the potential to be lucrative for Trump Media, which has seen its stock value plummet by close to 70% this year despite entering new markets, including cryptocurrency and streaming. The company struggled to retain market value after Trump’s inauguration in January.
The president’s $1 billion share of Trump Media makes him the company’s largest single shareholder. His oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., sits on the board of directors and oversees the trust that holds his father’s 114 million shares.
As news of the merger broke Thursday morning, Trump Media shares surged by nearly 34%, trading at a high of $14.94, more than $3 higher than their Wednesday closing price.
Trump Media’s bet on nuclear fusion, which is still in experimental stages and has yet to prove a viable energy source for power grids, is the latest in a series of new ventures for the company. It recently expanded into cryptocurrency markets and streaming. Under the TAE merger deal, shareholders of each company will own about 50% of the combined company.
Fusion energy works by forcing together light atoms, such as hydrogen and isotopes, under extreme pressure to produce vast amounts of energy. It’s a process that has eluded scientists for decades, but recent breakthroughs promise a potential for carbon-free energy that has drawn the attention of tech giants, billionaires and now the president.
The second Trump administration has been largely unfriendly to clean energy policy, scaling back several Biden-era policies that offered tax incentives for clean energy infrastructure. But Chris Wright, Trump’s energy secretary, has repeatedly touted the abilities of fusion power.
Trump Media’s investment puts the president in competition with several tech executives who helped send him back to the White House. Open AI’s Sam Altman, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg have all invested, to the tune of millions, in various fusion power startups. They all donated to Trump’s inaugural fund. Calling fusion power “the most dramatic energy breakthrough since the onset of commercial nuclear energy in the 1950s,” Devin Nunes, the chief executive of Trump Media, painted the merger as a means of putting America ahead of the global AI arms race and securing “global energy dominance for generations.” The company said it plans to break ground on a utility-scale fusion power plant as soon as 2026, with the hope of building additional fusion power plants that can supply sustainable energy in the years to come. “Fusion power plants are expected to provide economic, abundant, and dependable electricity that would help America win the A.I. revolution and maintain its global economic dominance,” the news release said.
Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. Recommended
