The financially struggling Trump Media & Technology Group’s shocking, $6 billion merger with a nuclear fusion developer represents either a bet on more taxpayer dollars being invested in the first fusion player to go public—soon owned in part by the Trump family—or a belief that an influx of capital will speed up the launch of clean, limitless electricity that eventually will transform the global grid.
Trump Media’s struggling stock had plummeted nearly 70% year-to-date prior to the announcement. But the stock value spiked over 40% on the deal news with the market cap rising back above $4 billion on Dec. 18—even though TAE Technologies doesn’t plan to bring its first power plant online until 2031 to start generating revenues.
TAE Technologies CEO Michl Binderbauer recognizes the potential negative perception, but he told Fortune he’s eager to speed up the clean energy revolution that he is confident will come with the so-called merger of equals with Trump Media, which will become a Truth Social media, cryptocurrency, and fusion power conglomerate.
“In the end, if we get more scrutiny because of the deal we did, I actually don’t mind that,” Binderbauer said. “It’s perversely sounding, but I welcome it in a way because we let the technology speak.
“It’s big, bold and fast. You make a big bet with boldness at heart, and it allows you to run really fast,” he said. “I know our technology will succeed. Let it be adjudicated on a perhaps even deeper level. We need more energy; we need clean, scalable power.”
Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen government watchdog group, sees it quite differently as an obviously unethical cash grab by the president and his family.
“It’s a ridiculous merger. Why in the world would those two companies merge, and why would the markets respond positively?” Weissman said. “The markets are betting on the prospect of the Trump grift expanding and for … direct federal government payments to a company whose leading shareholder is the president of the United States.”
TAE has received federal Department of Energy grants dating back to Trump’s first term and continuing through the Biden administration. As part of a reorganization announced in November, the DOE is opening a new Office of Fusion.
The deal would value the merged company at $6 billion, including debt, and Binderbauer and Trump Media head Devin Nunes would serve as co-CEOs, they said. Shareholders of each company would own about 50% of the combined company. Donald Trump Jr. would take one of the nine board seats.
Trump Media will invest up to $200 million in TAE up front and another $100 million before the deal closes in mid-2026, they said.
TAE aims to select a site for its first power plant by the end of 2026 and generate first power by late 2031, on par with the goals of some of its top competitors.
In a statement, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the media is irresponsibly trying to fabricate conflicts of interest.
“Neither the president nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest,” Leavitt said.
The DOE, Trump Org, and Trump Media did not respond to interview or comment requests.
In a media call during which no questions were allowed, Nunes said fusion power will lower energy prices, bolster national defense, and support “America’s dominance” of AI.
“Why is fusion power revolutionary? It’s because fusion power plants are now feasible at commercial scale, and they will produce reliable, cost-effective, dispatchable, and carbon-free electricity, and industrial heat with no nuclear meltdown risk or radioactive waste,” Nunes added.
The potential of fusion
The joke about fusion energy is it’s always 30 years away and not getting any closer.
However, the breakthrough scientific moment came at the end of 2022 when scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory successfully achieved “first ignition,” fusing atoms through extreme heat to generate more energy than the setup consumes for the first time ever.
Since then, TAE and other competitors have continued to make greater fusion progress on their various scientific approaches to fusion power generation.
Whereas traditional nuclear fission energy creates power by splitting atoms, fusion uses heat to create energy by melding them together. In the simplest form, it fuses hydrogen found in water into an extremely hot, electrically charged state known as plasma to create helium—the same process that powers the sun. When executed properly, the process triggers endless reactions to make energy for electricity. But stars rely on overwhelming gravitational pressure to force their fusion. Here on Earth, creating and containing the pressure needed to force the reaction in a consistent, controlled way remains an engineering challenge.
While TAE and others are targeting the early 2030s to bring the first commercial fusion power plants online, industry analysts agree it will take several additional years at least to start making a notable dent in the nationwide or even global energy grid. Still, the long-term potential remains huge.
“Fusion power is the answer to providing reliable, cost-effective, carbon-free electricity,” Binderbauer said.
TAE was founded 27 years ago—originally as Tri Alpha Energy—but stayed in stealth mode until 2015. Actor turned entrepreneur and angel investor Harry Hamlin was even a cofounder back in 1998. An Austrian-American physicist, Binderbauer served as the founding chief technology officer, eventually rising to CEO in 2018.
Over time, TAE has raised a combined $1.3 billion from Google, Chevron, Charles Schwab, and many others.
“Do you raise $1 billion in scaled capital over multiple years? Or do you have it come at high velocity?” Binderbauer asked. “The high velocity is critical if you want to build something quickly and efficiently.
“The concerns are very secondary.”
That’s what makes the Trump Media deal so critical, he said.
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