Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., the company behind Truth Social, is getting into nuclear fusion.

The company said Thursday it will merge with TAE Technologies Inc., a closely held fusion developer founded in 1998, in a transaction valued at more than $6 billion. Shareholders of each company will own about 50% of the combined business after the all-stock deal is completed, Trump Media said in a statement.

The deal marks another dramatic pivot for President Donald Trump’s social media company, which has unveiled plans for a wide array of new business ventures this year — including stockpiling cryptocurrencies, offering financial products and setting up markets for sports wagering.

Trump Media shares jumped as much as 38% in New York.

The move comes as Trump, in his role as president, has thrown his weight behind accelerating construction of nuclear power plants. He has signed an executive order that aims to get 10 large, conventional reactors under construction by 2030, and has called for the use of government funds to support the restart of shuttered nuclear plants.

His administration, similar to that of former President Joe Biden, has also supported efforts to commercialize fusion power. Trump’s Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, has said commercial fusion electricity could be possible in as soon as eight years, and his agency recently created a new Office of Fusion, as part of a broader department reorganization reflecting the administration’s energy priorities.

Fusion energy gained momentum when the process was created in laboratory conditions for the first time in 2022. Recreating that at a commercial scale offers the tantalizing prospect of cheap, abundant and clean power. However, the technical obstacles remain formidable and the systems are costly. No company has been able to produce fusion energy at a commercial scale.

Trump Media will invest as much as $300 million in TAE through the transaction, and Michl Binderbauer, the fusion company’s chief executive officer said the infusion will help accelerate his plans for building a commercial power plant.

“Capital is now becoming our biggest challenge,” he said during a conference call Thursday.

The combined company plans to begin construction next year on the world’s first utility-scale fusion power plant, and he expects “first power” in 2031.

Trump’s social media company has chased a series of new businesses this year, including cryptocurrencies, money management and prediction markets. But venturing into fusion is a significant departure, pushing the company even further outside the realm of social media — where it began with its platform Truth Social, created after Trump was banned from Twitter in the wake of the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

Trump Media is unprofitable. But since it went public last year, the company has traded like a meme stock, with price swings that don’t necessarily correlate to its underlying value, including a rally when Trump was re-elected.

TAE has raised more than $1.3 billion in equity capital since its inception from investors including Google, Chevron Technology Ventures and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., according to the statement.

Billionaires including OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos have bet on fusion startups such as Helion Energy Inc. and General Fusion Inc.

TAE is developing a system that uses hydrogen-boron as fuel, which is relatively easy to get and not radioactive. That’s a shift from many of its rivals that are working with two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium, the latter of which is both scarce and radioactive. TAE has been working to commercialize fusion for decades, and along the way has spun off two units based on other technologies it’s developed, TAE Power Solutions in 2024, and TAE Life Sciences in 2017.

Once the deal closes, current Trump Media Chief Executive Devin Nunes and Binderbauer will serve as co-CEOs.

“We’re taking a big step toward a revolutionary technology that will cement America’s energy dominance for generations,” Nunes said on the call.

(With assistance from Ari Natter.)

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