Trump Media & Technology Group has (TMTG) has announced it will combine with fusion power developer TAE Technologies in an all-stock reverse merger deal worth a whopping US$6 billion.
Acquiring TAE reconfigures the parent company of Trump's Truth Social platform from a pure-play media outfit into a diversified hard-tech holding entity seeking commercial fusion energy.
Under agreed terms, TMTG and TAE shareholders will retain ~50% equity each on a fully diluted basis, creating a balanced ownership structure for the new combined entity.
TMTG allocated a $200 million liquidity injection at signing, with a further $100 million contingent upon filing the S-4 registration for public listing.
Structurally, this transaction operates effectively as a reverse merger for TAE, a California-based firm that has expended over $1.3 billion in venture backing from institutional heavyweights like Google, Chevron, and Goldman Sachs since 1998.
A fusion bet on fusion
Fusion power is touted to bridge over the perceived “AI energy cliff”- the projected deficit in baseload power required for hyperscale data centres that intermittent renewables cannot reliably service 24/7.
Computing power demands are rapidly outpacing grid capacity - and that creates a unique arbitrage opportunity for power providers that are able to promise consistent, zero-carbon output.
By positioning fusion as the engine for AI, the combined entity attempts to tap into two separate speculative bubbles simultaneously - deep tech and digital infrastructure.
Co-CEOs Devin Nunes and Michl Binderbauer pitched the consolidation as a bid for "American energy dominance," targeting groundbreaking for a 50MW utility-scale plant next year.
Distinct from the tokamak reactors favoured by ITER, TAE employs a proprietary beam-driven Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC) to contain superheated plasma.
Their specific fuel cycle, Hydrogen-Boron (p-B11), avoids radioactive tritium but is notoriously difficult to ignite compared to deuterium-tritium mixes, requiring temperatures in excess of 3 billion degrees Celsius.
Achieving this stable plasma state remains the technology's primary engineering bottleneck, known in the industry as the "fusion valley of death", where capital often dries up before commercial viability is proven.
For TMTG, acquiring TAE offers a diversification away from legacy business fundamentals, which have struggled to gain traction.
Meanwhile, the deal could be a welcome distraction from Truth Social losses that exceeded $54 million last quarter against negligible revenue
DJT shares rallied over 25% in early trading, indicating the "Trump trade" is pricing in a multi-decade energy horizon.
Concern for investors points to the glaring fact that fusion technology is pre-revenue and historically unproven at grid scale.
TAE has operated for nearly three decades without achieving net energy gain, leading some analysts to characterise the merger as a complex financial instrument.
While not provable, it could be construed that the reverse merger appears designed to recapitalise a distressed media asset while institutional investors look for the exit door.
Closing is anticipated in mid-2026, pending regulatory clearance and shareholder ratification.
