Officially in Stupid Land now. I'll bail out on this bizarre sideshow.
By Robert Cyran
NEW YORK, Dec 18 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Donald Trump is wrapping up a wild year of M&A with his own personal bow. The U.S. president's social media venture, Trump Media & Technology DJT.O, unveiled plans on Thursday to merge with nuclear fusion wannabe TAE Technologies in a $6 billion deal. It's a fitting preview of the folly yet to come.
Trump Media runs Truth Social, where the commander-in-chief regularly expresses himself, and carried $1.6 billion of cryptocurrency on its balance sheet at the end of September. The company, in which a Trump revocable trust holds 52% of the vote, racked up more than $140 million of expenses over the first nine months of 2025 with less than $3 million in revenue. Its self-proclaimed competency is “large capital raises and complex regulatory processes.”
On that silly basis, TAE makes a suitable partner. It brings “27 years of fusion research,” and aims to generate power using the atom-combining technology in 2031. It's an ambitious target considering that NextEra Energy, one of the largest nuclear operators, said this summer that building new plants using proven fission technology would probably take a decade. Fusion's promise of unlimited clean power has been just over the horizon since a project under Argentine President Juan Peron in the 1950s.
Progress has been made, but any arrival date or commercial terms are complete guesses. Trump Media and TAE shared precious little financial detail and refused to take questions following an eight-minute phone call with investors. If fusion doesn’t pan out, maybe the cancer therapy TAE says it's developing will provide a Plan B. |
