Trump Media jumps aboard the speculative nuclear fusion bandwagon

Just when you thought 2025 couldn't get any weirder, Trump Media and Technology Group - best known for Truth Social - is jumping into the still-nascent but heavily funded nuclear fusion industry via a planned merger with TAE Technologies. TMTG on Thursday announced a merger agreement with fusion power firm TAE Technologies …

[Charlie Clark]

How long before a juicy government contract drops?

I mean, self-dealing is in the national interest right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How long before a juicy government contract drops?

TBH, I'm surprised at this move. Isn't the whole idea of Nuclear Fusion part of the 'Geen New Scam'?

OTOH, the stock price for Trump Media has dropped so much, this might be all that saves it from Chapter 7. It can't go on losing $50M+ per quarter for ever.

Either way, steer clear of this as a 'fix' will be in that gives Trump more $$$$$ and to hell with everyone else. Remember he is all about ME ME ME ME ME ME ME and he can't stand intelligent women of color.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How long before a juicy government contract drops?

> "Isn't the whole idea of Nuclear Fusion part of the 'Geen New Scam'?"

Not sure what you're getting at with the 'Geen [sic] New Scam' thing? Do the quotes imply that's *their* (i.e. the American right's) strawman description of anything "green"?

Regardless, anyone who claims we're going to have fusion in the next five years (or whatever it was) thanks to AI- and relies upon that- as someone associated with the current US government did a while back, is either an idiot or a scammer. Nuclear fusion has been fifteen to twenty years away for the past c. seventy years, and even if they got commercially viable lab results tomorrow, that's still going to take a long time to come to fruition.

Still, I believe they *will* get fusion working eventually, and I'm strongly in favour of investing in research (for the simple reason that the payoffs will be huge, even if it isn't a miracle solution). I just wouldn't bet my life on it happening sooner rather than later.

None of that has anything to do with my feelings about this announcement, which screamed "financial engineering scam" as soon as I heard about it- why the hell would a "media" company suddenly be associating itself with a nuclear fusion company.

And that was *before* I read the detail that "arguably impossibly ambitious goal of breaking ground on a utility-scale fusion power plant in 2026".

Seriously? They're not even trying for plausibility there. That's so blatantly implausible, it comes across as almost intentionally so.

There's no way *anyone* involved with this believes that for a second- Trump and his cronies may otherwise be ignorant enough to do so, but there's no way someone with half a clue won't have explained how ludicrously implausible it is to them.

So, the only question is how the scam works. Is this intended to be a case where amoral sleazes know damn well it's a con, but are led on into investing because they think *they'll* get a slice of Trump's would-be corrupt, self-dealing, pork-barrel scheme, only to find that- like countless types who jumped on the Trump bandwagon for reasons of greed and self-interest- *they're* the ones who get screwed over and discarded like the disposable marks they are?

Is it just (as someone else here suggested) just a means to have foreign countries funnel bribes to Trump by "investing" in this company? In which case why wouldn't they make at least a token gesture towards making it a half-plausible (or at least deniable) excuse rather than something so clearly unlikely that no-one with any investment nous would throw away their money on it?

[trindflo]

Re: How long before a juicy government contract drops?

The way all of the trump scams work is to use someone else's resources to create chaos that shakes everything up, then try to grab falling fruit.

He may not make a lot directly off his crypto businesses, but he can make a ton off a company that trades in crypto if he is able to get others to use his trading company by leveraging his ability to cause trouble.

He doesn't need an original idea or even a good idea to restrict progress in any endeavor until he gets a piece of the action.

It's like that joke with the punch line: you don't need to be a brain to be the boss ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Green New Scam

Trump hates anything to do with clean energy. He loathes 'Windmills' and has said that they give you cancer.

Then there is his 'Drill Baby Drill' policy and the stupid plans to allow oil drilling in the last bit of Alaska that has been spared (See the TV series 'The Last Alaskans' and you will get my drift)

He will say and do anything that lines his pocket with 'green'.

Truth Social and the Trump Media company has been hemorrhaging money for years. The losses could not go on so grabbing a bit of a company with a huge war chest thanks to its 'B Funding Round' where the likes of Google and Amazon put in millions seems to be a life raft but will line his already lined pockets with even more money

Given his clearly sinking health, you have to ask why? He can't take it with him but.... he probably is addicted to fleecing money from everyone he can just to prove to his addled brain that he can do it.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Cryogenic Preservation

Given his clearly sinking health, you have to ask why? He can't take it with him

Trump is not going to give up money that easily. He could be the first POTUS to be cryogenically preserved, hoping that he'll be reanimated by future MAGA followers.

The alternative is he'll be put in a gold casket and be displayed at the Trump Presidential Library, like Lenin

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Cryogenic Preservation

You mean the first Futurama head, swimming in nutrient solution, occasionally fed with flavoured fish food?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cryogenic Preservation

> "You mean the first Futurama head, swimming in nutrient solution,"

Pretty sure that some minimum wage employee will have swapped that out with piss sooner or later.

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: Cryogenic Preservation

The alternative is he'll be put in a gold casket and be displayed at the Trump Presidential Library, like Lenin

Embalmed Lenin in the Trump library, displayed alongside the carcass of the Orange _iDJ_iT seems appropriate given both were complete grifters. Although Trotsky was said to be worse but fortunately unembalmed..

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Green New Scam

> "Trump hates anything to do with clean energy. He loathes 'Windmills' and has said that they give you cancer."

Trump's specific hatred of "windmills" is because he lost a case against the Scottish government to prevent them building an offshore wind farm he thought would spoil the view from his nearby golf course. (More here).

As always with someone as pathologically self-centered, narcissistic and lacking in empathy as Trump, whether he sees something or someone is good or bad is defined purely in those terms- whether he likes it or not, whether they agree with him and pander to his ego or not, whether it's in his interest or not, etc.

Wind farms, on top of his initial dislike of them, are now also emblematic of people who stood up to him, didn't give him what he wanted and won a court case against him. And for someone as vindictive as Trump, that's why wind farms are bad.

That said, I'm almost certain that he now genuinely believes his retroactive- and utterly implausible- rationalisation of that position (i.e. the bird and "cancer" blaims). Because while Trump bullshits as easily as breathing, he's also someone so narcissistic that he would convince himself it was right purely *because* it came out of his own mouth. To suggest otherwise implies that Trump might be wrong, and one thing Trump will never accept is that he might be wrong.

[Rudy]

Re: The Green New Scam

Quote "He can't take it with him".

In the words of my late and very wise grandmother: "There are no pockets in a shroud".

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: The Green New Scam

You reminded me of You Can't Take It with You, which Trump will never learn, even in afterlife.

[PB90210]

Re: The Green New Scam

He will have the fusion reactors converted to good old fashioned coal... the clinker produced is obviously a form of fusion

[DS999]

Re: How long before a juicy government contract drops?

Isn't the whole idea of Nuclear Fusion part of the 'Geen New Scam'?

Not unless they make it work and it threatens fossil fuel interests like the Koch Brothers, the Saudis, and other Trump benefactors. The minute it does that they'll be pushing tons of negative press about it, decrying the subsidies it received in the past, claiming it has unknown effects and needs study before being allowed to put into actual use, and rev up the conspiracy theory nuts who will say that electricity generated by fusion traveling over the powerlines near your house has 100x the cancer causing effect of electricity generated by clean, beautiful coal!

[gryphon]

Re: How long before a juicy government contract drops?

Until we have matter replicators a la Star Trek we'll always need fossil fuels.

Vast majority of crude oil is obviously burnt but rest goes for agriculture, pharmaceuticals etc.

Reducing the cost of that feed stock since the proportion of it available will rise as transport proportion falls might have positive benefits.

[DS999]

Re: How long before a juicy government contract drops?

If we had fusion energy it would be plentiful enough that taking apart used plastics to basically turn them into such feedstock would easily beat drilling for oil cost wise.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: How long before a juicy government contract drops?

Surely, "he can't stand intelligent women of color."

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How long before a juicy government contract drops?

For completeness: “….unless they’re hot, they put out, and they don’t talk too much’

[TVU]

Re: How long before a juicy government contract drops?

Any investment by that administration in any form of nuclear power is welcome and perhaps the AI bosses are getting through to Trump that old fossil fuels alone aren't enough to power new data centres.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: How long before a juicy government contract drops?

Actually, I think we moved beyond the "clean" energy aspect even before Tweedletrump got back into the White GOLD House. AI is the next thing and we can't afford to miss it. Unfortunately, it has power requirements a bit like needing another star in our solar stream, so along with selling the chips necessary to get us all to paradise, someone will also need to produce all that power. Yep, it's the gold rush all over again!

[John Dann]

No comment at all on the weird fusion reaction that TAE has chosen to pursue???

[elsergiovolador]

Rusty trombone

It's Putin's trumpet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Truth is Pravda in Russian

It is too much of a coincidence between Truth Social, Russian bots with Truth in their name, Putin's Russia, and western disinformation grifters. All are obsessed with "truth".

Pravda was the main newspaper of USSR. And the 2nd important newspaper was Komsomolskaya Pravda. There was a joke that the only truth in those propaganda sources was publication date.

[Rudy]

Re: Truth is Pravda in Russian

The two main newspapers in the USSR were Pravda (meaning Truth) and Izvetsia (meaning News).

The joke in the USSR was "There is no truth in the News and no news in the Truth".

[Pickle Rick]

Success Guaranteed in '26

They'll be able to declare fusion success in 2026. Much like Truth Social *gag* no one'll be connected to it to say it doesn't work.

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: Success Guaranteed in '26

The criterion for success in 2026 is not fusion. The goal is to break ground on the facility. They could actually start clearing a site in 2026.

[Pickle Rick]

Re: Success Guaranteed in '26

Thanks, it's better when the joke's unexplained :D

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

It's a grift

Trump is just going to harvest more money from suckers and/or launder money from "foreign investors."

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Follow the Money

"one of the world's first publicly traded fusion companies."

Follow the Money flow into entities related to Trump.

Given his age and health issues, he certainly won't live long enough to see this company producing energy from Fusion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Follow the Money

> "he certainly won't live long enough to see this company producing energy from Fusion"

Like that was ever going to happen regardless!

Whatever the real aim of this company, it's an obvious scam. It's never going to produce energy from fusion and isn't meant to- the fact they're even *suggesting* they might break ground on a "utility-scale fusion power plant" in 2026 makes clear they aren't even trying for plausibility.

Long before anything resembling fusion could ever actually happen- and long before Trump dies- it will have disappeared or evolved into another self-dealing Trump scam.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Tokamak and Stellerator

Both principles have the change to generate more energy than the need to start or operate. No other is close. Once they work the first applications may be niche, like on a warship in case of stellerator.

But Trump does not seek science, he seeks a way to scam more money.

if you want science, from Hartmut Zohm, working on both ITEF and Wendelstein-7X: Check this youtube-search link and choose the English thumbnails. Many of his German videos are available as English version - spoken and recorded by himself, not AI crap translation.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Tokamak and Stellerator

sed s/ITEF/ITER/g

[may_i]

Re: Tokamak and Stellerator

Plus sed s/change/chance/g

Perhaps proof reading before clicking the submit button is a good approach?

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Tokamak and Stellerator

Forget it, I read what I mean not what I wrote. I'd need to outsource it. In the end it is THE proof that I am not an AI. (On top fingers getting weaker, will have to switch to Cherry Blossom soon)

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Tokamak and Stellerator

"I read what I mean not what I wrote."

We all do.

[Doctor Syntax]

"an arguably impossibly ambitious goal of breaking ground on a utility-scale fusion power plant in 2026"

Not at all impossibly ambitious. They can break ground. All that means is they dig a few trenches, even pour sume concrete into them. It doesn't mean they build anything operational on them.

[Gary Stewart]

Actually they can go much further with the same results, money down the rat hole and into investors pockets. Note to investors, just be sure to get out somewhere on the way up. Remember the Foxconn in Wisconsin project? Empty buildings and hundreds of millions in lost taxpayer money.

[IGotOut]

Meh.

I've broken ground on an AI nuclear fusion bitcoin DC.

All it took was 5 minutes with a spade.

Now can the UAE and Saudi governments give me $1billion? They love funding failed fantasy projects.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Meh.

> "Now can the UAE and Saudi governments give me $1billion? They love funding failed fantasy projects."

Only if you're the type of person they might want an excuse to bribe in the first place, i.e. by "investing" in their obvious self-enriching scam.

[Omnipresent]

The first AI Emperor

Has anybody even seen Emperor Frumpy lately? How do we know the cult isn't pulling a "Weekend at Bernie's", and just feeding the world an AI Frumpy? It's obvious to me that his Truther Social account is an AI bot. He probably needs the power to run his AI self.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: The first AI Emperor

"What’s going on with Donald Trump’s health?"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/18/donald-trump-health

He can't stop us speculating.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Prizes

This means during the next World Cup, the chance of Trump getting the FIFA Physics and Economics Prizes just got higher

https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2025/12/10/us_nonvisa_entry_five_years_social_media/#c_5193663

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: Prizes

This means during the next World Cup, the chance of Trump getting the FIFA Physics and Economics Prizes just got higher

Just give the prick the Fields Medal so everyone with more than a single neuron will know the piss has been well and truly taken.

Given these prizes are awarded to people whose work is usually understood by fewer than is required to form a cricket team, awarding it to a fool who could not competently use a four function calculator is a pretty decent (sic) backhander.

[Gary Stewart]

Trump and the law(s)

"Ambitious timelines don’t bend the laws of physics"

Well if he can just get the Supine Court to back him again (and again...) the laws of physics shouldn't be a problem.

[Alistair]

Follow the ...... <money>/<fusion>/<energy>

Fusion is something that has seen a *lot* of research and technical progress in the last dozen years, and, *if* that progress continues it will provide substantial technical and financial benefit to the whole of the planet, but as to *when* that occurs I'm not about to even attempt to predict. I've seen notes that *several* research groups around the globe have managed to get tokamak based fusion reactors out to about 45 or 55 seconds of operation, and a *suggestion* that one of those runs had been energy *neutral*, although I think the sums involved we kinda fuzzy on just how much of the startup energy they managed to recover. None, however were sufficiently stable to suggest that we're ready to start thinking about building generating capacity.

Trump on the other hand has been abundantly clear since his *first* term in office that his sole objective in becoming and being president is to make himself and his immediate associates as wealthy as is possible. Period. His handouts to the broligarchy were pure and simple payoffs for investing in getting him elected. I get the idea that he was utterly jealous of the broligarchy, and as a result he doesn't really like them even now.

Thus, Trump Media geting in bed with TAE smells just a wee bit odd. Although I've seen a reference that when TAE initially formed, there was a russian oligarch connected to it, but I've not seen anything to back that reference, if there is substantiation of that I might want to pursue just where that avenue leads before making any assumptions about what this is *really* about.

What stinks to high heaven on this front is the murder of a reasonably well known fusion specialist in academia just a few days before hand. I'm no raging conspiracy nut, but this has the aroma of a skunk on the side of the road on a hot august night.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Follow the ...... <money>/<fusion>/<energy>

> murder of a reasonably well known fusion specialist in academia

The BBC is reporting that this is connected with the Brown U. shootings and a suspect of Portuguese nationality has been found dead. The suspect seems to have previous academic connections with the victims.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

How a Reddit tipster cracked the Brown University shooting case

How a Reddit tipster cracked the Brown University shooting case

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg9l1j9wxno

...

The car, meanwhile, was tracked close to the home of the MIT professor who was killed, 47-year-old Nuno F Gomes Loureiro. It was then found to have been driven to a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire, where the suspect was found dead on Thursday.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: How a Reddit tipster cracked the Brown University shooting case

Further details - link to suspect & one of the victims

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/19/brown-university-shooting-mit-professor-motive

At a later news conference on Thursday in Boston, Leah Foley, US attorney for Massachusetts, said Neves Valente and Loureiro attended the same academic program between 1995 and 2000 at Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal’s premier engineering university.

Loureiro, who was head of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, graduated from the physics program at the Lisbon facility in 2000, according to his biography. Neves Valente was terminated from a position at the university the same year, Foley said.

[Anonymous Coward]

Orange Fusion?

I always had him pegged as more of a thermal energy (hot air) type of guy

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Orange Fusion?

I suspect he might be open to some pegging whenever he meets his handler…

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Orange Fusion?

And who will be having whose butt baby?

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Orange Fusion?

Brain bleach!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It’s a plot

Devin Nunes wants a nuclear weapon.

[herman]

Company Fusion

Fusing the companies is a first step that likely will result in temporary stock price upside. So I bought $100 worth and will sell when it becomes $500, or maybe it will end up as 50c on the pink sheets. The odds are terrible, but you cannot win if you don't play.

[JacobZ]

Breaking ground in 2026

If there's one thing Trump is really good at, it's skimming off a construction project.

[JacobZ]

"There is a moonshot opportunity here, a version of the Apollo program."

Such a stupid comparison.

The Apollo program was a massively expensive taxpayer-funded science and engineering project. At the end of it, we did not have rocket ships for the masses, nor was that the goal.

A better comparison might be something like the companies that first gambled on bringing widespread access to electricity.

[codejunky]

Entertainment

There is some fun to Trumps name being linked to something people support resulting in screaming heads but beyond that who cares? Good luck getting fusion working but beyond that meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Entertainment

#TSD

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Entertainment

> "There is some fun to Trumps name being linked to something people support resulting in screaming heads"

"Screaming heads"? I must have missed that, I just saw a bunch of posts treating it dismissively it for what it was, an obvious scam.

Still, if trying to convince us that you were chortling away at all that is your idea of "fun", don't let us stop you. ;-)

Regardless of what one thinks of fusion, or of the prospects of a genuine, good faith attempt at making it viable... if you honestly believe that a media company merging with a fusion business claiming that they hope to "[break] ground on a utility-scale [i.e. commercially viable] fusion power plant in 2026"- i.e. within a year or so- is a genuine attempt at fusion or *anything* other than a blatant scam, you are the definition of gullible.

The fact it's about fusion is almost irrelevant. It may as well have been about landing a man on Mars within the same timeframe, something even less plausible than Elon Musk's own constantly- and risibly- shifting projected launch dates for the same thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Entertainment

codejunky> There is some fun to Trumps name being linked to something

I would not use recommend using the term, "some fun" when discussing the subject of the "Epstein Files".

[RobThBay]

Con+Fusion

Definitely sounds like Trump is involved.

[FuzzyTheBear]

Look at him go.

The man is about to die. When he goes , that TM goes with him and that's the end of the money too. Investing in anything Trump is a bad move. All he ever done ended in bankruptcy. Stay away is the best financial health advice anyone can give .

[ADG101]

The hubris of fusion promoters is unparalleled. But can any fusion device generate any electric energy whatsoever??

Every fusion facility consumes megawatts to hundreds of megawatts of electricity, or megajoules for pulsed systems. But in 75 years of R&D, no device has ever produced a token amount of fusion-derived electricity (say 2 kilowatts) while simultaneously gorging on megawatts or megajoules. It’s unlikely that anyone can make even that modest a demonstration before 2040.

Remember the claim that fusion energy has “essentially free fuel.” If the fuel is deuterium-tritium, the startup tritium will cost $100 million or more. Maintaining the tritium fuel supply depends on the performance of the Lithium-6 isotope and a beryllium neutron multiplier, installed in the neutron-absorbing blanket. Where is the Lithium-6 going to come from? Lithium isotope separation is an environmentally destructive process that has not been practiced in the US for half a century. Presently the only commercial sources of Lithium-6 are China and Russia.

As for beryllium, the US does have a substantial fraction of world resources, but the neutron-absorbing blanket of a single fusion reactor would require half a year’s US production and the beryllium cost will exceed $100 million.

The fusion drumbeat goes on. Notice how all these “fusion reviews” feature people whose livelihood is based on continued fusion research? How about a more unbiased technical review from a qualified expert outside the fusion industry? Hundreds of billions spent, with ever more billions needed to reach supposed commercialization with an ever receding future timeline, always stated as still decades away. Let’s concentrate on proven, practical, currently existing clean energy technologies. This is needed now.