TL;DR
Trump Media dropped its planned Truth Social spinoff into a SPAC run by Trump family allies. The $6 billion fusion merger with TAE Technologies is still on track for Q4 2026.
Trump Media & Technology Group, TAE Technologies, and Texas Ventures Acquisition III have decided not to proceed with a planned spinoff of Truth Social and other media assets. The three companies said in a statement on Wednesday that Trump Media and TAE remain committed to closing their $6 billion merger in the fourth quarter of 2026 or sooner.
The spinoff discussions began in February, when the companies announced they were exploring a deal to place Truth Social into a new publicly traded entity that would merge with Texas Ventures Acquisition III, a blank-check firm. Texas Ventures is run by allies and business partners of the Trump family, including executives from the Trump Organisation.
What the spinoff would have done
The structure would have separated Truth Social from the combined Trump Media-TAE entity after the fusion merger closed. Shares of the spinoff company would have been distributed to Trump Media shareholders of record from before the TAE merger, and the new company would then have merged with Texas Ventures, a SPAC.
That plan is now off the table. The board of the combined company will instead evaluate “potential strategic alternatives” for Trump Media’s legacy media assets after the TAE merger closes.
The TAE merger
TAE Technologies is a California-based company developing aneutronic fusion power. It has built and operated five fusion reactors and raised more than $1.3 billion from investors including Google, Chevron, Goldman Sachs, and NEA.
The merger, announced in December 2025, values the combined entity at more than $6 billion in an all-stock transaction. The combined company plans to site and begin construction on its first utility-scale fusion power plant, a 50-megawatt facility, in 2026.
Trump Media’s financials
Trump Media is valued at approximately $1.3 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. DJT shares were down less than 1% in premarket trading on Wednesday.
The company reported a $712 million net loss in 2025 and roughly $870,000 in revenue in the first quarter of 2026. Truth Social has an estimated 6.3 million monthly active users, a fraction of the audiences commanded by X, Instagram, or competing platforms.
The flags
President Donald Trump holds a 57.6% stake in Trump Media. Ethics experts have warned that the merger poses conflicts of interest, since Trump has direct oversight of government agencies, including the SEC and FCC, that regulate the company.
TAE Technologies has not commercialised fusion power and does not generate meaningful revenue from energy production. The $6 billion valuation is based on the promise of a technology that no company has yet delivered at commercial scale, and the combined entity’s near-term revenue base is negligible.
The abandoned spinoff raises questions about why the deal fell apart. No explanation was given beyond a reaffirmation of the TAE merger. The involvement of Trump family allies in the SPAC that would have absorbed Truth Social added a layer of conflict that ethics watchdogs had flagged.
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