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Nuclear fusion is the perfect topic for experimental finance. They share a basic premise: smash two things together, and presto! An abundance is created.
The two concepts come together in Thursday’s merger of Trump Media & Technology Group — the US presidential family’s listed company — with TAE Technologies, an outfit racing to realise the new energy super-source. Each side will get a 50 per cent share of the unified company; based on Thursday’s share price, that’s about $4bn apiece, valuing TAE at more than triple the private capital it has raised over almost three decades.
Hold your nose about the unsavouriness of the president’s family buying a nuclear fusion company weeks after its co-founder and his peers petitioned the US government for money, and the deal has some attractions for the human race. Fusion offers a way to power the planet efficiently and cheaply, but its benefits are mostly theoretical. The Trumps could perhaps help. Political influence brings money, and money buys brains.
Moreover, the entire industry may benefit from the perception that fusion is now a real investment available to real people. Peers such as Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Pacific Fusion and UK contender First Light Fusion, with a sideline in space and defence technology, may now see greater interest. Should they be minded to pursue public listings in 2026, they now have a yardstick against which to calibrate their worth.
While fusion is a brave new world of physics, Trump’s clan looks to have invented something new in finance too. Investors are familiar with the Spac, or listed special purpose acquisition company, which raises cash, acquires an unlisted target and, in effect, takes it public through the back door. That’s how TMTG debuted on the market.
But whereas Spacs traditionally bring cash, what this deal infuses into TAE is exuberance — manifested in TMTG stock that trades at 1,000 times its annualised revenue. That’s despite the Trump media group being, in investment terms, a failure. Revenue is shrinking. The shares closed on Wednesday 90 per cent down from their peak closing price, barely better than Trump’s commemorative memecoin.
Perhaps this financial alchemy is what attracted TAE boss Michl Binderbauer, and his fellow investors, which include Google. Cash can be found anywhere, but baseless stock market zing is a rarer gift, and one TAE can now use to raise more capital, potentially attract talent and snag investors’ attention. Coal and cash shells are old hat; fusion and hype shells are now where it’s at.