Nuclear fusion is the perfect topic for experimental finance. They share a basic premise: smash two things together, and presto! An abundance is created.
The two concepts come together in Thursday’s merger of Trump Media & Technology Group — the US presidential family’s listed company — with TAE Technologies, an outfit racing to realise the new energy super-source. Each side will get a 50 per cent share of the unified company; based on Thursday’s share price, that’s about $4bn apiece, valuing TAE at more than triple the private capital it has raised over almost three decades.
Hold your nose about the unsavouriness of the president’s family buying a nuclear fusion company weeks after its co-founder and his peers petitioned the US government for money, and the deal has some attractions for the human race. Fusion offers a way to power the planet efficiently and cheaply, but its benefits are mostly theoretical. The Trumps could perhaps help. Political influence brings money, and money buys brains.