A Trump-sponsored business is once again betting on an industry that the president has championed, further entwining his personal fortunes in sectors that his administration is both supporting and overseeing.
This one is in the nuclear power sector. TAE Technologies, which is developing fusion energy, said on Thursday that it planned to merge with Trump Media & Technology Group. President Trump is the largest shareholder of the money-losing social media and crypto investing firm that bears his name, and he will remain a major investor in the combined company.
The deal, should it be completed, would put Mr. Trump in competition with other energy companies over which his administration holds financial and regulatory sway. Already, the president has sought to speed up safety reviews of new nuclear power plants and lower thresholds for acceptable radiation exposure.
“Having the president and his family have a large stake in a particular energy source is very problematic,” said Peter A. Bradford, who previously served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the independent agency that oversees the industry.
The Trump administration has sought to accelerate nuclear power technology — including fusion, which remains unproven — in its drive to meet America’s quickly growing demand for energy, particularly as tech companies build power-hungry data centers in the race for artificial intelligence. That support has come in the form of federal loans and grants, as well as executive orders directing the N.R.C. to review and approve applications more quickly.
Mr. Trump has taken similar steps to reduce regulatory oversight of the crypto industry, especially by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He also signed an executive order last week that would make it difficult for states to regulate A.I., something tech companies had wanted.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement that “neither the president nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest.” A spokeswoman for Trump Media said the company was “scrupulously following all applicable rules and regulations, and any hypothetical speculation about ethics violations is wholly unsupported by the facts.”
Mr. Trump’s stake in Trump Media, recently valued at $1.6 billion, is held in a trust managed by Donald Jr., his eldest son. Trump Media is the parent company of Truth Social, the struggling social-media platform. The merger would set Trump Media in a new strategic direction, while giving TAE a stock market listing as it continues to develop its nuclear fusion technology.
Michl Binderbauer, chief executive of TAE, said in an interview that he struck the deal with Trump Media for “the capital available and the will to boldly deploy that on this project.”
He added that he welcomed regulatory scrutiny of his company’s technology. “We will stand up to that,” Mr. Binderbauer said.
Every nuclear reactor in operation today is powered by fission, which releases energy by splitting large atoms, typically uranium. That process can create enormous amounts of electricity without any air pollution or planet-warming emissions, but it can also produce dangerously high levels of radiation, which is why conventional nuclear reactors have to follow strict safety regulations.
Fusion, by contrast, produces energy by combining smaller atoms together. There is no risk of runaway chain reactions or meltdowns and the radioactive waste it leaves behind is less dangerous. Because of that, the N.R.C. unanimously voted in 2023 to regulate fusion reactors more lightly than fission reactors, treating them similarly to particle accelerators used for scientific research. The White House is currently reviewing the proposed rules governing approvals for fusion reactors.
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More than two dozen start-ups across the United States have collectively raised billions of dollars in an effort to build working fusion reactors, which offer the promise of limitless clean power, though many scientists think the technology still faces steep hurdles.
The biggest of those challenges are likely to be technical rather than regulatory, and it was not yet clear if TAE or any other company had solved them, said Adam Stein, director of nuclear innovation at the Breakthrough Institute, a pro nuclear research organization.
But, he added, federal regulators most likely would get involved in efforts to build out fuel supplies for the reactors, should they ever start scaling up. “There’s no fuel supply chain for fusion right now,” Mr. Stein said. “That will be another growing challenge.”
Although the United States has the world’s largest fleet of nuclear power plants, only three new reactors have come online since 1996. Many utilities have been deterred by the high cost of building nuclear fission plants.
Nuclear power companies and politicians from both parties, including the Trump administration, have frequently faulted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which reviews new designs, for impeding nuclear power. Critics say many of the regulations the agency uses are excessive and no longer appropriate for a wave of advanced fission reactors that are being designed to be less susceptible to meltdowns.
In May, Mr. Trump signed four executive orders aimed at accelerating the construction of nuclear power plants. One directed the N.R.C. to streamline its safety rules and to take no more than 18 months to approve applications for new reactors. It also urged the agency to consider lowering its safety limits for radiation exposure, saying that current rules go beyond what is needed to protect human health.
“We’re going to get it very fast, and we’re going to get it very safe,” Mr. Trump said at the time.
Separately, the Energy and Defense departments have started programs to build novel reactor designs on federal lands and military bases. The N.R.C. would not need to approve these reactors, but the administration has signaled that it would like to prove out the technology so that safety regulators could more quickly license them for commercial use later.
At the same time, the Trump administration has sought greater authority over the N.R.C., which has traditionally operated at a distance from the White House.
In June, Mr. Trump abruptly fired Christopher Hanson, who had previously served as chair of the commission under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. It was the first time in the N.R.C.’s history that a commissioner had been removed — typically, the five commissioners of the agency are appointed for fixed terms. Mr. Trump appointed David A. Wright as chairman.
While Mr. Wright has insisted that the N.R.C. would remain independent and would not “rubber stamp” any reactors, two Democratic commissioners have expressed concern that they could be fired for making decisions at odds with the administration.
“I think on any given day, I could be fired by the administration for reasons unknown,” one of them, Bradley R. Crowell, said at a Senate hearing in September.
Allison M. Macfarlane, who previously led the N.R.C., said eroding the agency’s independence puts the country at risk. “The politicians have just put their thumb on the regulator,” she said.
Matthew Goldstein contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
Rebecca F. Elliott covers energy for The Times.
The post Another Trump Financial Conflict, This Time With Nuclear Power appeared first on New York Times.
