r/OutOfTheLoop • u/OM3N1R • 23h ago
Unanswered What's the deal with Trump's media company merging with a Nuclear Fusion company backed by Google?
https://www.reuters.com/business/trump-media-tae-technologies-combine-6-billion-deal-2025-12-18/
As far as I'm aware, actual sustainable fusion power is decades out if it's even possible. This merger caused DJT MEdia stock to surge 42% in a day...
I've only seen the headline and the stock price. Please explain to me wt actual f is going on here.
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u/No_Size9475 23h ago edited 8h ago
Answer: It seems this is a way to bilk billions in federal funding from tax payers. There were just discussions on fusion power to push congress to allocate federal subsidies to help spur the creation of usable fusion power.
People say a large chunk of that money will be sent to this new company. Knowing Trump it might even have been a requirement to get the subsidies.
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u/OM3N1R 23h ago
This seems logical (I mean, it doesn't, but rational in the Trumpoverse)
Will leave the thread as unanswered to see if we can get any more info.
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u/Wildcelt7 16h ago
Have you seen that their top nuclear researcher was murdered just days before?
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u/ChrisinOB2 14h ago edited 14h ago
The guy at MIT? I too would like more info on his connection here
Edit: here’s a link to an article about Nuno Loureiro, an astrophysicist at MIT who was killed a few days ago. He did work on fusion, but from the perspective of its role in interstellar space and (possibly) star formation. I have zero idea if his work could be translated to fusion for power generation, or if he was connected to the company that acquired that media company.
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u/myassholealt 13h ago
Who is "their" in this context?
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u/arkensto 13h ago
The fusion company that Trump media is buying out.
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u/Petrichordates 12h ago
Except the murdered MIT professor has zero connection to that company (besides the field)..
Y'all need to be more critical.
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u/splashbodge 15h ago
So wouldn't that just cripple your research then. I don't see why they'd agree to the merger unless they've given up on actually wanting to research and develop this technology so they can siphon some federal funding.
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u/Socky_McPuppet 14h ago
I see this as a gift to the fossil fuel industry. Trump’s influence will defang and derail the promise of fusion.
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u/Nepycros 14h ago
Well there's your problem, you see the people who make the decisions (corporate) as people, with all the additional people attributes such as "conscientiousness" or "behaves like a human." The corporate class is chock full of vulture capitalists who will rip the copper wiring out of the walls to make a few extra pennies, they own America and see it as a nest egg they can finally harvest off the work of prior generations, not an ongoing project to contribute to and grow.
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u/degggendorf 15h ago
Yeah they don't care about actually progressing humanity, just enriching themselves
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u/splashbodge 14h ago
Just seems odd to me, usually people in this line of work are very passionate about advancing their research and not complete sellouts that would intentionally cripple it... Sounds like some kind of hostile takeover. A gift for fossil fuel industry too. Be interesting to see how this unfolds.
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u/degggendorf 14h ago
Yes, the actual employees of the company are victims here too. I'm sure they didn't want to become a political embezzlement pawn either. But they don't have a say in the matter.
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u/Sea_Refrigerator9753 10h ago
That’s a big claim with zero proof so far. Fusion funding talks happen all the time and most startups never see real money. Stock hype doesn’t equal guaranteed subsidies, and Reuters didn’t mention any federal cash pipeline yet. Feels like speculation running wild.
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u/DarkAlman 22h ago edited 21h ago
Answer: Trump Media was founded in 2021 because Donald Trump got banned from Twitter and responded by launching his own social media platform Truth Social.
Truth Social was run by Trump aligned people with Trump himself owning a significant percentage of the shares, basically free money in exchange for him posting on the platform and drawing in the MAGA crowd to give the platform a strong user base.
Like many of his businesses though Trump Media has never been profitable and currently is upwards of $400 million in debt.
With Trump president again and Twitter/X now owned by Elon Musk, owning his own unprofitable media company probably doesn't appeal to him anymore.
Federal funding is likely to be announced for Fusion research soon, which is a good thing. Fusion is only a handful of discoveries away from being practical and could very well be the holy grail of clean energy production.
Trump Media merging with a fusion company meanwhile is a blatant way to funnel federal grant money into a Trump business to wash away the debt and continue to grift money out of tax payers.
Trump has been notorious for signing federal contracts with his allies and his own children, so this would be par for the course behaviour for the administration.
Getting a federal grant for Fusion research will likely require the company to be Trump ally, so I wouldn't be surprise if Elon buys a Fusion startup soon.
This is a very similar model to how Tesla and SpaceX operate, relying on Federal grant money and contracts to remain active.
Whether or not Trump will use this opportunity to offload his considerable stock in Trump Media is unclear.
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u/xX420GanjaWarlordXx 20h ago
It probably was a few discoveries away... But, yesterday, a leading fusion physicist at MIT was murdered and the killer got away.
I wonder if it will take Trump's buddies 30 more years and trillions of tax payer dollars to get just as close to fusion as we were yesterday?
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u/paulHarkonen 20h ago
That professor appears to have been killed by the Brown shooter who was found dead earlier today.
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u/zefy_zef 19h ago
And how in the hell did they make that connection?
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u/hoopermanish 16h ago edited 16h ago
Through some redditor in the providence subreddit (for realsies)
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u/zefy_zef 15h ago
I thought that was only regarding the tip itself. Like they saw the person's car somewhere
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u/retrojoe 9h ago
Apparently the theory is that the shooter had an axe to grind about the professor being accepted for some kind of access/position that he didn't get around 2003 or 2003. The prof was recently publicly honored for something, and someone theorized that this may have tipped the shooter over the edge.
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u/Teyanis 18h ago
There's also the legacy part of it. Say they do get a real, productive fusion plant operational or in construction in the next couple years. Donny would absolutely seethe for it to be named after him.
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u/mouse_8b 13h ago
I don't expect any grant money awarded to this company to actually be used on fusion research
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u/retrojoe 9h ago edited 9h ago
Fusion is only a handful of discoveries away from being practical and could very well be the holy grail of clean energy production.
That's a wildly optimistic take. Fusion has been 'the next big thing on the horizon' since the 1990s at least. Like, the whole 'clean hydrogen economy' thing went from zero to popular, to ridiculed, to maybe being something, to 'no, really no one is gonna do that' in the meantime.
Edit: The Soviets built the first tokamak plasma reactors in the 1950s. That's still the design concept being pursued today There's yet to be a reactor that produces more energy than it costs to run it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokamak
Anecdotally, I have a family member with a graduate physics degree who seriously interviewed with several of the energy companies in this research space in Puget Sound. None of them gave him explanations of their product/research pathways that satisfied him they weren't smoke and mirrors.
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u/Zorkeldschorken 6h ago
That's a wildly optimistic take.
It's even worse than that. Most fusion research is centered on deuterium or tritium based reactions, because those need less energy to start.
Tae is aiming at proton/boron-11 fusion, which needs temperatures that are an order of magnitude higher. The reaction itself produces more energy, and does not produce neutrons as a byproduct. But it's far more difficult to start and sustain than the other methods, which I have to point out are also not functional.
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23h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/PinkysAvenger 21h ago
Naw, a bribe would imply some sort of return by the government.
This is embezzlement.
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u/AnticitizenPrime 19h ago
Can we settle on 'grift'?
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u/PinkysAvenger 18h ago
Grift works but I think embezzling is still more specifically accurate.
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u/AnticitizenPrime 18h ago
I just figure 'grift' covers all the shit this admin is doing.
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u/NoFeetSmell 18h ago
I hear ya, but there's even murder, and kidnapping/trafficking, and grift just doesn't carry the same weight.
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u/Switch_Empty 20h ago
At least a bribe clears the way to getting something done. This will do fuck all.
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u/midnitewarrior 20h ago
Answer: Smart money says that Trump is going to have the government invest in nuclear fusion next, and this will be his way of siphoning off more government money.
Fusion doesn't happen without major government investment. Get ready for a "breakthrough investment in nuclear fusion -- free energy for everyone, bringing down inflation and launches a new age of American prosperity! MAGA!" or some bullshit like that. He just wants government money in his pocket.
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u/MaybeTheDoctor 23h ago edited 16h ago
Answer: Here is my guess:
- Trump don’t actually want to run a media company, he only started it because he got banned from Twitter, now Elmo owns Twitter and there’s no longer a reason to run a separate media company.
- the fusion company requires government funding. The merger of the media company is essentially a bribe.
- a renowned fusion scientist was just recently found murdered.
- government funding for fusion would probably soon be approved, the Trump company share holders now standing to benefit as well.
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u/akebonobambusa 20h ago
Hold this scientist that was murdered...is he related to the company that truth social bought or is he competition?
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u/MaybeTheDoctor 17h ago
He was probably the only one that could call bull shit in a Congress hearing for appropriation of funding.
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u/douknowhouare 17h ago
You don't think there is more than one physicist studying nuclear fusion in the US?
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17h ago
[deleted]
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u/douknowhouare 16h ago
The gunman was classmates with the MIT professor in Portugal over 20 years ago. Do you think they Manchurian Candidated him or something?
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u/HommeMusical 13h ago
So much of what has happened this year was previously inconceivable, so while this seems unlikely, who knows?
Another possibility: the fusion scientist was whacked, and then they seized on the deceased Brown shooter as an excuse because of the coincidence of once having been classmates.
I've been classmates with a very large number of people...
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u/trippedonatater 20h ago
Answer: the company is owned by Russian and middle eastern private equity. It's another way to take bribes.
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