On December 18, 2025, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the parent company of Truth Social, announced a major all-stock merger with TAE Technologies. This pioneering nuclear fusion company is valued at over $6 billion. TMTG CEO Devin Nunes called it a step to “cement America’s global energy dominance for generations.” The new company plans to start building the world’s first utility-scale fusion power plants as early as 2026.[1]   Fusion powers the sun. It promises clean energy with no long-term radioactive waste.

What is TAE Technologies?

TAE was founded in 1998. Big investors back it, including Google, Chevron, Goldman Sachs and Charles Schwab. The company has privately raised over $1.3 billion . TAE has built five research reactors. TAE was working on a sixth called “Copernicus.” It first was expected to attain net energy gain around 2025.[2] But they recently decided to skip Copernicus and go straight to a prototype named DaVinci for a commercially scalable reactor. It was scheduled to be developed in the second half of the 2020s and to achieve 3 billion° C  and produce fusion energy.

The merger gives TAE access to public markets and up to $300 million in cash from TMTG. TMTG shareholders will own about 50% of the combined company. Executives highlight how fusion can fuel America’s AI leadership. Nunes said it will “lower energy prices” for the nation. The plans focus on TAE’s unique approach using hydrogen-boron fuel. They are separate from other US projects, like Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ SPARC tokamak (targeting first plasma in 2027) or Helion Energy’s prototype (aiming for power by 2028).

According to TAE’s website: All together, TAE’s approach to fusion can provide a cost-competitive product that has high energy density, high availability of fuel and no risk of pollution, proliferation, meltdown or toxic waste, making it the ultimate clean energy source.

The deal is expected to close in mid 2026. Construction on the first plant could start then with electricity generation targeted for the early 2030s.

Nuclear Confusion: A History of High Hopes and Delays

Before we get too excited, remember: the quest for practical nuclear fusion has been going on for over 70 years. People have often called it “always 30 years away” since the 1950s. (kinda like Iran is weeks away from a nuclear weapon) Governments and companies have spent billions. Yet repeated delays, technical challenges and missed timelines have bred skepticism. No utility-scale fusion power plants operate anywhere in the world today. All current facilities, like ITER in France or the National Ignition Facility in the US, are research tools. They produce short fusion reactions but no grid electricity.
Major projects face stumbling blocks. ITER was meant for first plasma around 2020. Now it targets the mid 2030s due to supply issues and engineering problems. Private companies like TAE are moving faster but they still deal with plasma stability, materials and costs. Recent wins, like net energy gain at NIF in 2022 and billions in private funding, give some hope. Still, commercial power remains years away.

Tragic Murder of Top Nuclear Fusion Expert Fuels Whispers of Conspiracy

The timing of this murder raises eyebrows. Just days earlier, on December 13, a deadly shooting rocked Brown University’s School of Engineering, claiming the lives of two undergraduate students, sophomore Ella Cook and freshman Mukhammad Aziz Umurzoko as well as injuring nine others during an exam review session in the Barus and Holley building. Then, on December 15 renowned MIT plasma physicist, Nuno Loureiro, was gunned down at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts. Nuno Loureiro, age 47 and originally from Portugal, was a world renowned theoretical physicist specializing in plasma dynamics – a critical area for advancing nuclear fusion energy.

He served as director of MIT’s prestigious Plasma Science and Fusion Center since 2024, leading one of the world’s largest labs dedicated to solving key challenges in clean fusion power. Colleagues hailed him as a brilliant, internationally recognized leader whose groundbreaking work on plasma turbulence and magnetic reconnection was pushing fusion closer to reality, earning him awards like the 2025 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Many in the fusion community described his loss as a profound blow, with one former colleague calling him “a top guy in his area, recognized internationally.”

Authorities linked both murders to the same suspect: Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year old former physics graduate student who briefly attended Brown around 2000-2001 before dropping out who also shared academic roots in Portugal with Loureiro. Valente was supposedly found dead by “suicide” in a New Hampshire storage unit on December 18 the very day of the merger announcement. He left behind a trail of unanswered questions. Why target a fusion expert at the pinnacle of his career? And why now, as private fusion breakthroughs appear poised for massive public investment?

Online discussions and whispers in energy circles point to the uncanny alignment. As one observer noted in forums tracking the news, “A top fusion scientist gets taken out, and suddenly a Trump-linked company snaps up a leading private fusion player? Coincidence?” Another echoed: “Fusion funding is about to explode for AI data centers – perfect timing for insiders to cash in.”

There’s an old saying: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.” Here, we have tragic violence striking the heart of academic fusion research just as a high-profile corporate fusion deal dominates headlines. Similar “coincidences” have arisen in past tragedies. Who from my generation can forget the Karen Silkwood case? Here are just a few of the many examples of timing combined with murders that fueled whispers of foul play:

• Post-9/11 Microbiologists Deaths : Between 2001 and 2005, at least 11–15 prominent microbiologists died in unusual circumstances, including plane crashes, stabbings, car accidents and falls from heights. One notable example is Dr. Don Wiley, a leading Harvard expert on viruses like Ebola and HIV, who vanished from a Memphis bridge in November 2001; his rental car was found abandoned with a full tank and his body was later recovered from the Mississippi River, officially ruled an accidental fall. Many people claimed that these scientists were silenced because their expertise in bioweapons and pathogens could expose that the 2001 anthrax attacks originated from U.S. labs rather than foreign terrorists. People believe this theory due to the suspicious timing being right after 9/11 and during the anthrax mailings combined with the victims’ specialized knowledge in relevant fields creating a pattern fueling distrust of official explanations. [3]

• 1980s GEC-Marconi Scientists Deaths: Between 1982 and 1990, around 20–25 scientists and engineers linked to the UK defense company GEC-Marconi died under mysterious circumstances. These individuals worked on sensitive projects, including Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) and the Sting Ray torpedo. Many deaths were ruled suicides or accidents, but involved bizarre methods, such as carbon monoxide poisoning in cars, electrocution via wires in tooth fillings, decapitation by driving with a rope tied to a tree, or high-speed crashes with extra fuel cans. One example is Ashad Sharif, who in 1986 allegedly tied a rope from his neck to a tree, got in his car and drove off nearly decapitating himself. Some claim the deaths resulted from KGB assassinations attempting to sabotage the programs or to internal coverups by intelligence agencies. People believe the theory due to the unusually high number of deaths within one company group and the grotesque, elaborate methods that seem inconsistent with typical suicides. [4]

• Andreas Noack (2021): In November 2021, German chemist Dr. Andreas Noack released a viral video claiming that COVID-19 vaccines contained dangerous contaminants, including aborted fetal cell DNA. He died days later from a sudden heart attack. Some reports claimed a police raid contributed to his death. Many believe he was assassinated to silence his warnings about vaccine contamination. People believe the theory due to the dramatic timing right after his video went viral. Media outlets controlled by Big Pharma attempted to debunk his claims, but evidence of aborted fetal DNA contamination in vaccines has since been proven true.[5] [6]

• 2015–2017 Holistic/Alternative Doctors Cluster: Between 2015 and 2017, there were claims that over 60–100 holistic and alternative practitioners died mysteriously in a short period. Many of these doctors focused on treating cancer, autism and other conditions with non-mainstream methods, including GcMAF, a controversial protein promoted as an immune booster. Examples include Dr. Teresa Sievers, a holistic MD bludgeoned to death in her Florida home in June 2015. Another is Dr. James Bradstreet, found shot in a river shortly after an FDA raid on his clinic investigating GcMAF treatments; his death was ruled a “suicide”??. Other deaths involved alleged murders, suspicious “suicides,” heart attacks and other accidents. Theorists claim Big Pharma orchestrated these hits to protect profits from conventional treatments. People believe the theory due to the sudden cluster of deaths, odd details like missing evidence and the victims’ shared focus on alternative cures that challenged mainstream medicine.

• 2024 Brazil Plane Crash Involving Oncologists: Many people viewed the August 9, 2024 crash of Voepass Flight 2283 in Brazil as suspicious. The flight carried at least eight oncologists traveling to the same conference in São Paulo which was an unusual cluster on one regional plane. The doctors were set to  expose links between mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and aggressive “turbo cancers”. Of course the mockingbird media constantly tries to debunk the Covid-19 mRNA shot link to the drastic increase in turbo cancers in the young and old. [7]

Back to the recent murders. Of course, officials insist Valente acted alone, driven perhaps by personal grudges from decades-old academic failures. Loureiro soared to international acclaim while Valente’s career fizzled. No evidence ties the shootings directly to corporate intrigue or “deep state” machinations. Yet, in an era where AI’s insatiable energy hunger is pushing fusion from lab curiosity to national priority, one can’t help but wonder: Could eliminating a key public sector fusion leader clear the path for private players to dominate? Might behind-the-scenes forces, whether corporate rivals, intelligence operatives or deep state shadowy interests, view academic breakthroughs as threats to monopolizing this game changing tech? After decades of old conspiracy murders you cannot blame people for speculating.

And let’s not ignore the bigger picture. Fusion could slash energy prices for everyday Americans, powering homes, factories and EVs with cheap, limitless electricity as Nunes himself promised in the announcement. Hopefully, if this comes to fruition, it will be used to lower our energy prices broadly and not just powering massive AI data centers for Big Tech. Wouldn’t it be better to prioritize affordable energy for the people over subsidizing Silicon Valley’s next gold rush?

As TAE and TMTG march toward mid-2026 closing, the fusion future “appears” to look bright. We are all rooting for energy solutions, hopefully sooner than later. But with the recent bloodshed in its shadow, it’s hard not to question: What’s really going on here? In the quest for unlimited power, who stands to gain and who might be silenced along the way? The truth, like fusion itself, may prove elusive.

[1] https://tae.com/trump-media-and-technology-group-to-merge-with-tae-technologies/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAE_Technologies

[3] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/scientists-deaths-are-under-the-microscope/article4134797/

[4]https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/47ksai/the_mysterious_death_of_the_marconi_scientists/

[5] https://meta.mk/en/a-complex-conspiracy-theory-about-the-alleged-persecution-and-murder-of-andreas-noack/

[6]https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check/viral-video-of-four-doctors-answering-questions-about-covid-19-vaccines-contains-idUSL1N2U01NW/

[7] https://publichealthcollaborative.org/alerts/brazilian-plane-crash-spawns-an-anti-vaccine-conspiracy-theory/?referrer=grok.com