Trump Media announces a merger with a nuclear fusion company

Trump Media (DJT) just took its most unexpected step yet.

The company announced a merger agreement with TAE Technologies, a privately held fusion power firm, in an all-stock deal valued at more than $6 billion.

The transaction is expected to close in mid-2026, pending customary conditions, and would leave shareholders of each company owning roughly half of the combined entity.

On paper, the result would be one of the world’s first publicly traded fusion companies.

Until now, Trump Media hadn’t had a vehicle to pursue something this far outside its core business.

Trump Media operates the social platform Truth Social and has only recently begun expanding beyond media, first into financial services and now into energy.

The merger would turn the company into a holding structure encompassing Truth Social, Truth+, Truth.Fi, and a suite of TAE-branded energy and life sciences units.

TAE Technologies, for its part, focuses on fusion power—an approach to energy generation that fuses atomic nuclei rather than splitting them. The promise is enormous. So is the uncertainty.

There are no commercial fusion power plants producing electricity today.

The technology remains experimental, with decades of research behind it and no proven path to utility-scale deployment. Long-term potential is widely acknowledged. Near-term economics are not.

Markets reacted quickly anyway.

Trump Media shares jumped about 25% in premarket trading following the announcement, even though the stock is still down more than 75% from its January highs. The move reflected surprise as much as conviction.

The deal also adds another layer of complexity to Trump Media’s ownership structure.

Former President Donald Trump indirectly owns more than 114 million shares of the company through a revocable trust, with Donald Trump Jr. serving as the sole trustee. That stake would roll into the combined company once the merger closes.

After the transaction, the new entity plans to pursue construction of a utility-scale fusion power plant, subject to regulatory approvals.

The companies framed fusion as a future source of dependable, low-cost electricity that could support artificial intelligence development and broader economic growth.

What this announcement didn’t do was change the underlying reality of fusion power.

The merger creates a public market wrapper around a technology that is still unproven at commercial scale.

Whether that translates into value will depend less on branding or structure—and more on whether fusion can move from promise to production.