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.
The combined company says it plans to find a site and begin construction next year on the “world’s first utility-scale fusion power plant,” with aims to provide the electricity needed for artificial intelligence.
Shares of Trump Media & Technology, the parent company of President Donald Trump's Truth Social media platform, have tumbled 70% this year but jumped 20% before the opening bell Thursday.
Backed by Google and other investors, TAE is a private company and the merger with Trump Media would create one of the first publicly traded nuclear fusion companies.
“We’re taking a big step forward toward a revolutionary technology that will cement America’s global energy dominance for generations," Nunes said in a prepared statement.
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 Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency. It's been seen as a promising solution to climate change caused by burning fossil fuels, but one that is a long way off compared to today's clean technologies like wind and solar.
TAE and Trump Media shareholders will each own approximately 50% of the combined company.
Trump is by far the largest stakeholder in Trump Media, owning 41% of all outstanding shares.
In October, the U.S. Department of Energy released what it called a “roadmap” for fusion technology, with the aim of fostering “a burgeoning fusion private sector industry in the U.S. toward maturity on the most rapid timeline.” A number of tech companies, including Google, Microsoft and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, have shown interest in fusion technology as a way of powering the energy-hungry data centers needed to build and run their AI products.
TAE and Trump Media say the transaction values each TAE common stock at $53.89 per share.
At closing, Trump Media & Technology Group will be the holding company for Truth Social and TAE, along with its subsidiaries TAE Power Solutions and TAE Life Sciences.
FILE - The download screen for Truth Social app is seen on a laptop computer, March 20, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Wisconsin judge accused of helping a Mexican immigrant evade federal authorities is set to present her case as her trial on obstruction and concealment charges winds down.
Prosecutors rested their case against Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan on Wednesday after three days of testimony. Dugan's defense attorneys said they planned to call four witnesses starting Thursday morning. It wasn’t clear whether Dugan would take the stand. Closing arguments could begin as early as Thursday afternoon.
The highly unusual charges against a sitting judge are an extraordinary consequence of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Dugan’s supporters say Trump is looking to make an example of her to blunt judicial opposition to immigration arrests.
Prosecutors have tried to show that Dugan intentionally interfered with members of a federal immigration task force's efforts to arrest 31-year-old Eduardo Flores-Ruiz at the Milwaukee County Courthouse.
Members of the task force testified that they learned Flores-Ruiz was in the country illegally after he was arrested in Milwaukee on state battery charges. He was scheduled to appear for a hearing in front of Dugan on April 18. Six agents and officers staked out Dugan's courtroom that morning, ready to arrest him when he emerged from the hearing.
They testified that Dugan and another judge, Kristela Cervera, stepped into the hallway wearing their robes. Dugan angrily told four members of the team to report to the chief judge's office.
As Cervera led them to the office, Dugan returned to her courtroom and led Flores-Ruiz out a private door into the hallway. Prosecutors produced transcripts of audio recordings from microphones in her courtroom that show Dugan told her court reporter that she'd take “the heat” for showing Flores-Ruiz out the private door.
Two agents Dugan missed during her confrontations with the team followed Flores-Ruiz outside, and a foot chase through traffic ensued before he was finally arrested. Members of the team testified that Dugan divided them and forced them out of position, leaving them too short-handed to make a safe arrest in the hallway.
Cervera, for her part, testified that she was uncomfortable backing up Dugan during her confrontations with the arrest team. She said she was shocked when she heard Dugan led Flores-Ruiz out a private door, adding that judges shouldn't help defendants evade arrest. Cervera also testified that Dugan told her three days after the incident that Dugan was “in the doghouse” with the chief judge, Carl Ashley, because she “tried to help that guy.”
Dugan's attorneys have countered during cross-examinations that Dugan didn't intend to obstruct the arrest team and was trying to follow a draft courthouse policy from Ashley that called for court employees to refer immigration agents looking to make an arrest in the courthouse to supervisors.
They've also argued that the arrest team could have apprehended Flores-Ruiz at any point after he emerged from the courtroom and Dugan shouldn't be blamed for their decision to wait until he got outside.
Dugan’s team filed a motion late Wednesday asking U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, who is presiding over the case, to find Dugan not guilty without asking jurors to deliberate.
They argued in the motion that Dugan may have inconvenienced the arrest team but she didn’t intentionally try to conceal Flores-Ruiz, noting that although he left through a private door, he still emerged into the public hallway where two agents saw him.
They also insisted that long-standing legal precedent prevents civil arrests of people coming or going from courthouses and immigration removal proceedings are civil actions.
Such motions for a direct acquittal are common in criminal cases after prosecutors rest their cases.
This courtroom sketch depicts Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan in court, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025 in Milwaukee, Wis. (Adela Tesnow via AP)
