Trump Media scraps Truth Social spinoff, stays with TAE merger

Trump Media & Technology Group has officially abandoned plans to spin off Truth Social into a separate publicly traded company controlled by Trump family allies. Instead, the company is pressing forward with its $6 billion fusion merger with TAE Technologies, targeting a close in the fourth quarter of 2026 or earlier.

In a joint statement on Wednesday, Trump Media, TAE Technologies, and Texas Ventures Acquisition III confirmed that the proposed spinoff is no longer under consideration. The three firms reiterated their commitment to completing the all-stock merger, which was first announced in December 2025.

The spinoff discussions began in February, when the companies revealed they were exploring a deal to place Truth Social into a new entity that would merge with Texas Ventures, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) run by executives and business partners of the Trump family, including figures from the Trump Organization. Under that plan, shares of the spinoff would have been distributed to Trump Media shareholders who held stock before the TAE merger closed, and the new company would then have combined with the SPAC.

That structure is now dead. Instead, the board of the combined company will evaluate “potential strategic alternatives” for Trump Media’s legacy media assets after the TAE merger is finalized.

TAE Technologies, based in California, is developing aneutronic fusion power. The company 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 values the combined entity at over $6 billion in an all-stock transaction. The combined company plans to begin construction on its first utility-scale fusion power plant, a 50-megawatt facility, in 2026.

Trump Media is currently valued at roughly $1.3 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. DJT shares dipped less than 1% in premarket trading Wednesday. The company reported a $712 million net loss in 2025 and generated just $870,000 in revenue during the first quarter of 2026. Truth Social has an estimated 6.3 million monthly active users, a fraction of the audience commanded by X, Instagram, and other major platforms.

President Donald Trump holds a 57.6% stake in Trump Media. Ethics experts have warned that the merger creates conflicts of interest, given Trump’s oversight of government agencies like the SEC and FCC, which regulate the company. TAE Technologies has not yet commercialized fusion power and does not generate meaningful revenue from energy production. The $6 billion valuation hinges on the promise of a technology that no company has delivered at commercial scale, leaving the combined entity with a negligible near-term revenue base.

The abandoned spinoff raises unanswered questions about why the deal fell apart. No explanation was provided beyond a reaffirmation of the TAE merger. The involvement of Trump family allies in the SPAC that would have absorbed Truth Social had already drawn scrutiny from ethics watchdogs, adding another layer of conflict to an already complex transaction.