By Emily Bary
Trump Media's stock is soaring as the Truth Social operator looks to get in on a hot AI power trend
Trump Media is expanding far beyond social media with its planned TAE Technologies merger.
Trump Media & Technology Group, the entity best known for operating the Truth Social platform, is getting into the nuclear business.
It announced on Thursday morning that it plans to merge with TAE Technologies to form "one of the world's first publicly traded fusion companies." After the closing of the deal, which is valued at upwards of $6 billion, shareholders of each company will own about half of the business.
This isn't the first time that Trump Media (DJT) has launched a foray into a buzzy new area, having also made cryptocurrency announcements in the past.
Shares of Trump Media are up 23% in Thursday's premarket action.
See more: The next battleground in the U.S.-China AI race is nuclear power
With the TAE combination, the company hopes to get in on a hot energy trend linked to the artificial-intelligence wave. As AI players scramble for power, they're increasingly hoping nuclear technology can help fuel energy-intensive models.
"Fusion power will be the most dramatic energy breakthrough since the onset of commercial nuclear energy in the 1950s - an innovation that will lower energy prices, boost supply, ensure America's A.I.-supremacy, revive our manufacturing base and bolster national defense," Devin Nunes, the CEO of Trump Media, said in a release.
Fusion technology specifically is the process of combining atomic nuclei to release even more energy than can be harnessed through nuclear fission, which is what nuclear power plants do, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
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"Importantly from a regulatory perspective, fusion is classified as an industrial facility and not a nuclear plant ... which gives it a clear path from shovel in the ground to completion (permitting can be less than 2 years) and no meltdown risk," Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives wrote in a note to clients.
Ives noted that there has been "a scarcity of nuclear-energy plays in the public markets." He said Big Tech companies could see even more value in nuclear operators given the heated geopolitical rivalry against China.
"The arms race for clean nuclear energy is an important one globally and investors are laser focused on the nuclear, grid, solar, utilities and traditional energy plays that will be major winners in this race to find the next sources of energy to fuel the AI revolution and importantly provide clean and affordable energy for the U.S.," he added.
TAE has raised more than $1.3 billion in private capital from investors including Google, Chevron Technology Ventures and Goldman Sachs, according to Thursday's release.
The deal is expected to close in the middle of 2026.
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-Emily Bary
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12-18-25 0740ET
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