this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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TAE is a private company and the merger with Trump Media would create one of the first publicly traded nuclear fusion companies.

Trump Media & Technology will merge with a fusion power company in an all-stock deal that the companies said Thursday is valued at more than $6 billion.

Devin Nunes, the Republican congressman who resigned in 2021 to become the CEO of Trump Media, will be co-CEO of the new company with TAE Technologies CEO Michl Binderbauer.

TAE focuses on nuclear fusion, a technology that combines two light atomic nuclei to form a single heavier one. It releases enormous amount of energy, a process that occurs on the sun and other stars, according to the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency.

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[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 139 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Mandatory reminder that Jimmy Carter put his peanut farm into a trust to avoid conflict of interest accusations.

[–] cybervseas@lemmy.world 38 points 2 days ago (1 children)

He also put solar panels on the White House roof. Which Reagan removed.

[–] logicbomb@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Hopefully, whoever the next president is will remove the ballroom.

[–] CitizenKong@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Why would Trump Jr. remove it? (/s, I hope)

[–] WindyRebel@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Nah. Keep it and redecorate and/or repurpose it. Then rename it to something super woke. Spend as little money as possible since it’s probably coming from our tax dollars to do this shit every four fucking years.

[–] Johnmannesca@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago

Host Planned Parenthood fundraisers with the fundraising goal set at the projected costs of the renovations, then make a statement of how it did nothing to promote the general welfare of Americans to renovate a roughly 200yo house and not even have a PBS special to show for it!

[–] gil2455526@lemmy.eco.br 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Ah, yes. The ballroom being designed by an architect with experience in electromagnetic protected buildings, built by the construction company with experience with classified data centers, and sponsored by tech companies and not luxury brands, in an area where the utilities companies have issued warnings their demands for water and power will increase 5 times.

What I'm trying to say, the ballroom is just the cover (literally).

[–] logicbomb@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago

Since it's just the cover, there should be no problem in changing the cover. Tear it down and replace it with something that hasn't been tainted by Trump's fingerprints.

[–] N0t_5ure@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago

What a sucker! He should have used the power of the presidency to bully his way into a merger with IBM. Surely no one would have objected.

[–] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 89 points 2 days ago (2 children)

And just days after the murder of an MIT nuclear fusion professor...

[–] DBT@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 47 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

The prosecutor’s office said no suspects had been taken into custody

Huh. I guess not being a healthcare CEO really puts a damper on the whole investigative process.

[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 4 points 2 days ago

Well, the suspect was just just found dead so they didn't take all that long

So this is why he was assasinated

[–] xxce2AAb@feddit.dk 64 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm sorry, but what the fuck?

[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 25 points 2 days ago (2 children)

You don't need to apologize.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ah the days of crazy pills are SO back.

[–] killea@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

They never left, they are just horse pills now with unclear labeling.

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Pardon my French but que le putain est ce merde?

[–] verdi@feddit.org 56 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Reminder some European physicist working in nuclear fusion at MIT was just murdered under suspicious circumstances. 😏

[–] eskimofry@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

its too sad for me to accept the usage of an emoji on that piece of terrible news. Like if it was a CEO i wouldn't have posted this comment. Losing a scientist hurts.

[–] discocactus@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

A competing entity as well. Curious.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 31 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (7 children)

I just posted how I’ve grown skeptical of nuclear fusion.

This site outlines some misgivings quite well: https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/

As one example, the “lack of radioactivity,” an often touted benefit of fusion, is just… not true. In fact, D-T fusion releases much higher energy neutrons than any fission, and that’s inevitably going to degrade the equipment, turn it radioactive, and wreak all sorts of havoc.

Tritium production isn’t easy, nor particularly sustainable.

Many of fission’s “problems” it’s supposed to solve, like storing hot waste or the finite supply of uranium, really aren’t that big a deal, and can be addressed with the extra expense/engineering of breeder reactors or (possibly) thorium reactors if it’s so important.

Proliferation? Fusion reactors are great at producing fissile material.

Other issues, like fission's required capital investment, are clearly worse with fusion, and don’t seem to be improving. Heck, we don’t even have the capital or political will for newer fission reactors.


Look. I want a fusion breakthough. This was a good avenue to try.

…But now, fusion feels like one of those interesting ideas that turned out to not be so practical in reality (not yet anyway), now transitioning into a grift.

And if Trump Media buying a fusion startup to put it on the market isn’t a red flag, I don’t know what is.

[–] noride@lemmy.zip 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Nah, the point is to get a sweetheart deal when they inevitably file for bankruptcy because they are a budding energy company taking big risks on new tech, not a media company hemorrhaging money at an unsustainable rate, silly goose!

[–] ramble81@lemmy.zip 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There we go. That’s the angle I was looking for. I was curious what the grift was, but now this opens them up to getting energy subsidies and protections.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It’s part of the AI hype train too. Energy is hot in the stock market, with the idea being scale up for all these chip fabs and data centers we’ll need for infinite AI.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because there was a similar energy craze over cryptomining. Though not at this scale.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But now, fusion feels like one of those interesting ideas that turned out to not be so practical in reality (not yet anyway), now transitioning into a grift.

2020's: Time to invest! We're like 5 years away from fusion reactors, hyper loops, and general AI!

2040's: Time to invest! We're like 5 years away from fusion reactors, hyper loops, and general AI!

But hey at least the world now has Ai-powered human-slaying drone swarms thanks to all that VC. 👍

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

To be clear, I don't want to hate on tech investment. Fusion has to be tried to see if it works.

But it's got a lot of tries, more than its fair shair IMO. Imagine if we split all that cash between fission, thorium, solar, laser drilled geothermal, things like that.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 3 points 2 days ago

Until the last 10 years, fusion barely got any funding in America, and similar levels elsewhere. Here's a budget projection from decades back that should give some perspective on the inevitable outcome, and why optimism has been so high lately.

[–] ohulancutash@feddit.uk 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

As to the radioactivity issue, fusion would irradiate the equipment with isotopes of very short half-life, but the volume would be no more than with fission, and at a much lower radioactivity requiring decades of storage rather than millennia. It also aids in anti-proliferation as a fusion reaction won’t generate significant fissile material under normal operation, unlike fission. So it could be used in countries that aren’t feasible now with strict regulations such as maintaining a minimum lithium enrichment level.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It doesn’t produce waste isotopes directly, no, but the neutron radiation creates new radioactive isotopes within whatever equipment is in range. And AFAIK it’s harder to stop than fission because the D-T fusion neutrons are 14.1 MeV. And separately from that, it degrades the equipment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_embrittlement

Which seems pretty significant when fusion needs so much equipment hugging the reactor chamber. It would complicate cleaning, too.

That changes with other types of fusion, but D-T is all we got now.


As for proliferation… again, it’s a great neutron source. It doesn’t have the same waste, no, but countries can absolutely use it to breed fissile material if they want.

And let’s say, hypothetically, a country goes against regulators and decides they’re going to breed material with their fusion reactor. With some trouble, they can use it to make tritium too. The supply couldn’t be cut off.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 2 days ago

its probably specifically the neutrons degrading the core chamber, is whats going to prevent any commercial, or even useful advancement of it, because the cost of maintenance,

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[–] breakingcups@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago

I guess the news is just madlibs now

[–] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago (4 children)

TAE focuses on nuclear fusion, a technology that combines two light atomic nuclei to form a single heavier one. It releases enormous amount of energy

.......... theoretically, if it could be achieved. Is this company purely a research company? How can one be a "Nuclear Fusion" company, when there's currently no such thing as sustainable fusion?

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 days ago

My guess is in the same way companies claim to be Artificial Intelligence companies?

[–] meco03211@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Pretty sure we've achieved sustainable fusion. What I think is missing is making it cost effective and scalable.

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I think the record is like 22 minutes, not sure if I would call that sustainable yet.

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[–] ohulancutash@feddit.uk 4 points 2 days ago

By developing technologies and licencing the patents.

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[–] ObscureOtter@piefed.ca 12 points 2 days ago (2 children)

How crazy would it be if Trump's corruption and conflicts of interest are what gets us to invest in cold fusion and make it a practical, scalable energy source.

Doubt it. Probably end up like another one of his casinos.

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There's like a dozen companies already working in fusion reactors. This would only siphon money away from projects that might actually produce something useful

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Exactly this. Guarantee at some point down the line there's a bill or budget passed that allocates a bunch of money to fusion research ("Puuting America on the forefront of vital emerging technologies that will power this great nation throughout the 21st century!") and then this company, surprise, wins a bid to get allocated a big portion of that funding.

[–] wizblizz@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You're assuming good faith when it's only about the grift. They don't care at all if it succeeds, it's only about what they can skim off the top. They're leeches, they bleed the host dry and move on to the next victim.

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

Where on earth did I say any of that? My dude, I am literally describing the nature of the grift.

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 3 points 2 days ago

gets us to invest in cold fusion

I don't doubt it.

and make it a practical, scalable energy source

Some of us remember that pipe dream the first time around.

I had to double check this wasn’t the onion ..

[–] finley@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 days ago

Are they just gonna call it “Corruption Inc.”?

[–] weirdbeardgame@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Ah, so we're living in the Final Fantasy Vii timeline? When do they start drafts for SOLIDER?

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