Trump Media Is Now Technically a Fusion Company, I Did Not Make That Up

Photography of a dusty corporate boardroom with a glowing plasma chamber wheeled in beside a gilded desk, fluorescent overheads, deadpan mood, wide symmetrical composition

TAE Technologies, the field-reversed-configuration plasma outfit founded on Norman Rostoker's work, has merged into Trump Media at a $6 billion valuation. Devin Nunes will now have opinions about ion temperature.

TAE Technologies, the California plasma outfit formerly called Tri Alpha Energy and built on Norman Rostoker's hydrogen-boron reactor physics, has merged into Trump Media & Technology Group at a $6 billion valuation. Devin Nunes, a man who once sued a cartoon cow, is now nominally responsible for confining ions at 3 billion kelvin.

Hydrogen-boron fusion needs roughly thirty times the ion temperature of deuterium-tritium for a comparable rate. Spread $6 billion across TAE's ~1,200 staff and that's $5 million per person to babysit a CEO who thinks plasma is a television. I did the arithmetic.

Michl Binderbauer ran a serious lab. He has now accepted a corporate parent whose previous technology was a posting app. Norman is dead and cannot comment. Devin still drives a 2011 Escalade he refuses to service. The reactor is colder than the room.

Related twisted takes: Earthlings' Laughable Quest for Star Power Β· Laser Show Fiasco: How Millions of Dollars Got Zapped Away! Β· China Has 1.3 Billion Barrels of Oil Saved Up, Like a Doomsday Grandma

Based on the original article "Every fusion startup that has raised over $100M".