US to fund speculative energy venture backed by investors with ties to Trump

The US government is set to invest $175mn in a speculative fusion energy company backed by Josh Kushner, the brother of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, along with conservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel and OpenAI founder Sam Altman.

The company, Helion, will receive the money from a pool of research and development funding administered by the Department of Commerce made available under the Chips Act in return for an equivalent US government non-voting equity stake. The Helion funding is the largest commitment for a single company in the sector by the commerce department to date.
The deal marks the latest example of the Trump administration’s interventionist approach to corporate America, with tech companies and industrial groups receiving billions of dollars in support to stay ahead of foreign competition. Several of those companies have also been backed by investment groups with close ties to the administration.

Fusion groups such as Helion are attempting to commercialise a technology that replicates the reaction that powers the Sun by forcing atomic nuclei to combine in a superheated plasma. None have come to market so far.

Unlike conventional nuclear power, which creates energy by splitting atoms, nuclear fusion forces them together to generate massive amounts of energy without producing radioactive waste. Achieving fusion on Earth requires extreme temperatures and sophisticated high-tech equipment to contain the reaction.

Despite billions of dollars in investment pouring into the sector in the hope of producing low-waste energy, turning the technology into a realised product capable of sustained electricity production has so far not proved possible.

Executives have expressed concerns to the FT that private companies have set overly ambitious targets and predicted many will ultimately shutter before achieving commercial-scale fusion.

In 1958, British scientists announced a fusion breakthrough, only to later retract their claims. The multinational ITER project, based in France, has suffered billions of cost overruns and delays, with major experiments scheduled for 2039. The technology’s frequent setbacks have inspired a running joke among scientists and industry that fusion is always “just a decade away.”

While government funding has helped the industry make progress, it “needs to have a eureka moment, or five” for fusion to be commercially viable, said Adam Stein, director of nuclear energy and innovation at the Breakthrough Institute.

Helion, based in Everett, Washington, is expected to use the funds — which were announced as part of a $389mn award on Thursday by the commerce department — to develop and manufacture high-voltage semiconductors and energy power modules for commercial fusion energy.

Helion, which hopes to build the world’s first fusion power plant, was valued at $15.5bn in a $465mn funding round in June led by Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital. Kushner is the brother of Trump’s influential son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner. A spokesperson for Thrive did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Other investors in the company include Mithril Capital, co-founded by Thiel, and Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Vision Fund 2. OpenAI chief executive Altman owns roughly one-third of Helion’s shares.

“The Trump Administration is accelerating American semiconductor innovation to enhance our domestic energy and power resources,” commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said in a statement.

Other Trump-linked entities have also taken an interest in fusion technology. The Trump family media group, Trump Media & Technology Group, last year agreed to combine with Google-backed fusion energy company TAE Technologies in a deal valued at $6bn.