Why is Trump's media company getting involved with nuclear power?

This may have already been talked about extensively, but I missed it. I cannot believe Trump's media company merging with a fusion energy firm is not getting more press coverage. MIT's Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) and TAE (the company Trump's company merged with) and Helion Energy are the three biggest players in the space. Also, the scientific breakthrough alone is mind boggling and exciting. But the Trump investment thing is maddening. And the fact that it is hardly being covered is infuriating.

1. https://time.com/7328213/nuclear-fusion-energy-ai/

That kind of ambitious thinking has credibly brought fusion’s arrival closer, Oak Ridge’s Carter says. In 2020 he led a Department of Energy report that said a pilot nuclear-fusion plant could be built by the early 2040s, but he now thinks it’s possible that goal could be achieved by the mid-2030s. And beyond capital, AI is a useful tool for scientific progress. “The advent of AI has made some very challenging problems in the plasma space more accessible,” says Nuno Loureiro, director of MIT’s plasma science and fusion center.

2. https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-021-03401-w/index.html

“The mood has changed,” says Thomas Klinger, a fusion specialist at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald, Germany. “We can smell that we’re getting close.” Investors sense the real prospect of returns on their money: Google and the New York City-based investment bank Goldman Sachs, for instance, are among those funding the fusion company TAE Technologies, based in Foothill Ranch, California, which has raised around $880 million so far. “Companies are starting to build things at the level of what governments can build,” says Bob Mumgaard, chief executive of Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

And just as private space travel is now materializing, many industry observers are forecasting that the same business model will give rise to commercial fusion — desperately needed to decarbonize the energy economy — within a decade. “There’s a very good shot to get there within less than ten years,” says Michl Binderbauer, chief executive of TAE Technologies. In the FIA report, a majority of respondents thought that fusion would power an electrical grid somewhere in the world in the 2030s.


3. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-12-19/why-is-trumps-media-company-getting-involved-with-nuclear-power

President Trump’s media company is merging with a nuclear fusion energy firm in a $6-billion deal aimed at generating more power amid growing demand from power-hungry artificial intelligence data centers.

The merger between Trump Media & Technology and TAE Technologies could lead to one of the world’s first publicly traded fusion energy companies, the two companies said Thursday.

"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.”

Trump Media shares, which had fallen more than 80% from their 2024 peak, have skyrocketed around 50% since the deal was announced.