nuclear-news

‘Huge conflict of interest’: Trump’s $600 million windfall after nuclear deal.

ByMatt O’Brien and Jennifer McDermott, Sydney Morning Herald, December 19, 2025 

The parent company of US President Donald Trump’s Truth Social media platform is merging with a fusion power company, an unusual pairing of the Trump name with a futuristic clean energy venture that aims to power the next wave of artificial intelligence. Trump Media & Technology announced its merger with TAE Technologies in an all-stock deal that the companies said was valued at more than $US6 billion ($9.1 billion).

The combined company says it plans to find a site and begin construction next year on the “world’s first utility-scale fusion power plant,” with aims to provide the electricity needed for artificial intelligence.

Nuclear fusion is seen as a promising solution to climate change caused by burning fossil fuels, but one that is a long way off compared to today’s clean technologies like wind and solar. It will need huge investment as well as regulation to advance, which makes Trump’s ties a major conflict, said Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration.

“He’s jumping into this industry just like he jumped into cryptocurrency a couple of years ago,” Painter said. “Just as the United States government is gonna get all involved in it. And it’s so obvious that there’s a huge conflict of interest.”

Devin Nunes, the Republican congressman who resigned in 2021 to become the chief executive of Trump Media, will be co-CEO of the new company with TAE CEO Michl Binderbauer.

Shares of Trump Media & Technology have tumbled 70 per cent this year but jumped 34 per cent in afternoon trading on Thursday.

Trump is by far the largest stakeholder in Trump Media, owning 41 per cent of all outstanding shares. The share surge has added about $US400 million ($605 million) to Trump’s net worth, according to Forbes.

Backed by Google and other investors, TAE is a private company and the merger with Trump Media would create one of the first publicly traded nuclear fusion companies.

“We’re taking a big step forward toward a revolutionary technology that will cement America’s global energy dominance for generations,” Nunes said in a prepared statement.

TAE focuses on nuclear fusion, a technology that combines two light atomic nuclei to form a single heavier one. It releases enormous amount of energy, a process that occurs on the sun and other stars, according to the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency.

TAE and Trump Media shareholders will each own approximately 50 per cent of the combined company.

In October, the US Department of Energy released what it called a “road map” for fusion technology, with the aim of fostering “a burgeoning fusion private sector industry in the US toward maturity on the most rapid timeline.” A number of tech companies, including Google, Microsoft and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, have shown interest in fusion technology as a way of powering the energy-hungry data centres needed to build and run their AI products…………………………………………

Holland said the Trump administration has said it strongly supports fusion, but has yet to make any new financial support available.

In the association’s surveys of the industry, companies are saying they expect to see fusion energy on the electricity grid in the 2030s, with most saying they expect it in the first half of the 2030s, Holland said.

TAE and Trump Media say the transaction values each TAE common stock at $US53.89 per share.

At closing, Trump Media & Technology Group will be the holding company for Truth Social and TAE, along with its subsidiaries TAE Power Solutions and TAE Life Sciences. https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/huge-conflict-of-interest-trump-media-to-merge-with-nuclear-fusion-company-in-9-1-billion-deal-20251219-p5nowl.html

December 22, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA