Kelly Evans (Anchor) 00:00.070
shares of trump media soaring thirty seven percent after announcing plans and follow me on this one to merge with the fusion company a private one called TAE technologies that's right a nuclear fusion company it's going to make that company go public eamon jabbers is in
Kelly Evans (Anchor) 00:14.110
washington with more amon please explain this deal to us hey
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 00:19.230
there kelly yeah the announcement this morning was surprising to say the least trump media and technology group said it will merge with an experimental fusion energy corporation called tae technologies and an all stock transaction valued they say at more than six billion dollars
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 00:34.550
shareholders of each company will own approximately fifty percent of the combined company which the parties are calling one of the world 's first publicly traded fusion companies and they say that trump media 's hefty balance sheet is going to help fuel innovation in that fusion
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 00:49.390
energy tech the company says it's just on the verge of commercial application for its fusion reactors and it says it will now be led by co ceos former congressman devin nunez who was the CEO of trump media and austrian physicist michael bender bauer who is the current CEO of T A
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 01:07.790
E but this turns transaction raises two important questions kelly first is fusion technology actually commercially commercially applicable at all scientists have been trying to generate nearly unlimited energy from fusion power for decades but so far no one has been able to
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 01:23.430
create reliable commercial power that way and second how will a company that's partly owned by the president and his family handle all these potential conflicts of interest here in terms of regulatory approvals potential federal funding and all the national security concerns
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 01:37.950
that might go and with it still in an eight minute conference call this morning nunez wasn't shy about making big promises that fusion power will lower energy prices bolster national security and secure energy that's needed for a i development kelly does
Kelly Evans (Anchor) 01:53.350
it mean on some level that DJT as a media company ceases to exist and simply now becomes those assets get rolled up into a nuclear fusion company which may or may not be successful but that that is effectively what the entity is now one and secondly what remains the trump family
Kelly Evans (Anchor) 02:08.870
's interest in ownership in this entity
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 02:11.950
well it's going to be a social media nuclear power company naturally kelly i mean they're going to not dispense with true social right which is the president 's media organization that he uses to promote all of his ideas and proclamations to the world that companies got a lot of
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 02:29.070
value because of its association with the president and the attention that that gets and you know if you're running a company like that you got to look at a fairly limited time horizon right i mean at some point president trump will no longer be president trump and does the
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 02:43.400
value of that entity decline as the president moves into a retirement phase of his life and you know there doesn't seem to be any other sort of exciting new content creators in that media sphere so you realize you've got a short time window here to do something with that company
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 03:01.310
this looks like the play very speculative you know fusion powered not really proven you know it is the holy grail of energy it's been the holy grail of energy for a while and the cynics say it'll always be the holy grail of energy but if you can do it you know there's huge huge
Eamon Javers (Senior Washington Correspondent) 03:17.190
huge upside
Kelly Evans (Anchor) 03:17.910
all right eamonn appreciate it very much for now thanks amon jeffers