Trump Media will tackle 'futuristic' fusion. Shares soared 40%

Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), owner of Truth Social, announced a merger with TAE Technologies, a private fusion research company. Following this news, Trump Media's stock soared more than 40%. This "futuristic" technology is becoming part of the battle for dominance in the field of artificial intelligence, Barron's writes.

The merger deal between Trump Media & Technology Group and TAE Technologies is valued at more than $6 billion, according to a TMTG press release. Together, Trump Media and TAE Technologies expect to create "one of the world's first publicly traded fusion companies".

The companies' goal is to create energy sources "that will help America win the artificial intelligence revolution," according to Trump Media. Data centers, which are being actively built in the U.S., require significant amounts of energy.

Under the terms of the deal, TAE and Trump Media shareholders will each receive 50% in the combined company. The valuation of TAE under the deal amounted to $53.89 per share. The joint company will be headed by Trump Media CEO Devin Nunez and TAE CEO Michl Binderbauer. The nine-member board of directors will include the US President's eldest son Donald Trump Jr.

If regulators approve the deal, the combined company will begin construction of a 50-megawatt fusion power plant for industrial use next year, the report said. In the future it is planned to build several more plants with a capacity of 350 to 500 megawatts. At the same time at the moment there are no commercial nuclear fusion reactors in the world, only experimental ones. Commercial fusion power plants are unlikely to appear before 2045, assumed in 2024 the project of the Union of German Academies of Sciences Energy Systems of the Future.

Trump Media shares jumped more than 40% to $14.7 in trading Thursday. However, they have fallen 57% since the beginning of the year, according to MarketWatch. The company remains unprofitable: in the third quarter losses amounted to about $55 million.

Nuclear energy is becoming a key battleground in the rivalry between the US and China for dominance in the field of AI, Barron's notes. At the same time, there are almost no public companies in this field on the American market: one of the most notable is Oklo, in the creation of which Sam Altman, the head of one of the leaders of the AI market OpenAI, participated.

TAE Technologies is a non-public company, but its investors include Google, Chevron and Goldman Sachs, Barron's writes. TAE has raised more than $1.3 billion in private capital, according to a report released Thursday.

"China is aggressively investing in fusion power and scaling its nuclear infrastructure on the horizon to 2030, which increases pressure on the U.S. - it needs to offer a response," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote Thursday (quoted in Barron's). - Now with significant capital, TAE will come to the fore as a major player in U.S. nuclear ambitions over the next decade."

In 2025, Trump Media has been active in buying bitcoin and related assets - totaling $2 billion, making it one of the largest companies in the world in terms of digital reserves. Trump Media has also decided to enter the sports betting and other event betting market.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor