🧪 Turning atoms into power

In what is almost certainly the oddest merger of the year, President Donald Trump’s social media company struck a $6 billion deal to unite with the fusion energy company TAE Technologies in a bid to start building the “world’s first utility-scale fusion power plant” next year. 

• The all-stock deal will create the first publicly traded fusion company, vaulting privately held TAE — the onetime darling of investors pumping billions into the so-called holy grail of clean energy — ahead of its rivals in accessing financing from retail traders. 

• Unlike nuclear fission, which involves harvesting the energy released when atoms split in two, fusion generates heat and pressure from two atomic nuclei forcibly joining into one. It’s the kind of reaction that powers the sun.

• Researchers have pined for decades to harness fusion — to create, in essence, a controlled artificial star. But the technological challenges have been so steep, fusion has long been mocked as the energy source of tomorrow that always will be.

• TAE’s design requires deuterium and boron that needs to reach nearly 1 billion degrees Celsius. That is a more difficult proposition than even other fusion companies like Commonwealth Fusion Systems are aiming for, like heating deuterium and tritium to roughly 100 million degrees Celsius.

“TAE is not following the easiest pathway; it’s a very challenging and complex approach,” Chris Gadomski, the lead nuclear analyst at consultancy BloombergNEF, told Sherwood. “TAE is swinging for the fences for a grand slam, whereas Commonwealth is taking the most developed technology that’s best understood and trying to get a single and move that way, which is perhaps the easiest way to go.” 

The Takeaway

TAE is not alone. In July, Microsoft-backed Helion started construction on its facility in Washington state, vowing to produce the first commercial electrons by 2028. Commonwealth Fusion, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spin-off that in recent years supplanted TAE as the biggest magnet for private capital, expects its first commercial plant in Virginia to come online sometime in the 2030s. 

Investment is picking up: in the 12 months leading up to this past July, fusion drew $2.5 billion in public and private dollars, according to the Fusion Industry Association’s data.

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Trump signed an executive order yesterday directing the Department of Justice to reschedule marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a move that stands to lift profits of ailing US cannabis companies and expand access to medical research.

The executive order expedites the process of rescheduling marijuana from being a Schedule I drug, like heroin and LSD, to a Schedule III drug, like testosterone.

• This recently rumored move, reports of which had sent cannabis stocks soaring since December 11, is being treated as a “sell the news” event. The benchmark ETF for publicly traded US cannabis companies fell sharply about an hour before the signing of this executive order hit the wires, and finished the day down 27%.

• For US cannabis companies, the biggest outcome could be a tax treatment that’s more in line with other businesses. 

• Under the current regulatory scheme, cannabis companies can generally expense only the cost of acquiring their product but virtually no other business expenses.

The result is that cannabis companies are paying an effective tax rate of upward of 50%. Some cannabis companies may have a tax bill that exceeds their profits, and even unprofitable businesses may still get a tax bill.

The Takeaway

Joanne Wilson, CEO of Gotham, a dispensary chain in New York City, said more than half of the money her business makes goes to taxes. She said the change would be felt “immediately.”

“That totally changes the business,” Wilson said. “That’s a huge win, because nobody is making money — the taxes are insane.”

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Netflix and Disney+ probably added only ad-tier subscribers this year

As streaming prices climb, ad-free subscribers are becoming a rarity, according to Morgan Stanley, which estimated that cheaper ad-supported streaming subscriptions now make up 30% of Netflix’s subscribers and half of Disney+ subscribers, way up from last year’s numbers. But the firm also believes that ad tiers scored all net additional subscribers for the two streamers. 

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• 🏈 NFL: With just a few weeks left in the regular season, massive games are found all over. On Saturday, Chicago (51%) has the edge over divisional rivals Green Bay, and Sunday Night Football will see the once again ascendant New England Patriots (42%) taking on perennial AFC challengers the Baltimore Ravens (58%) in a game with major playoff seeding implications.

• 📰 Babies: “Liam” is currently projected to hold on to its title as the most popular boys name of 2025, with an 86% chance of topping the list compiled by the Social Security Administration, according to Polymarket traders. “Noah” is seen as the only real contender, with a 10.2% chance. 

• 🏈 College Football: It’s the first weekend of the College Football Playoff! Friday night the markets* are giving a razor-thin edge to Georgia (51%) over Alabama (49%) in an SEC rematch. Then on Saturday, Texas A&M (60%) is favored over Miami (40%), Tulane is a huge underdog (12%) to Ole Miss (88%), and James Madison (8%) will have its work cut out for it against Oregon (92%) in a showdown for the ages for “schools that are kind of close to Washington.”

*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.

• Good news for charcuterie season: eating high-fat cheese was linked to lower dementia risk 

• ICYMI: What happens when AI comes to town? A deep dive into Meta’s Hyperion data center

• Tesla’s 29 Austin Robotaxis have crashed eight times since June, suggesting they perform much worse than human drivers

• The Wall Street Journal let AI model Claude run a vending machine business. It didn’t go well

• Enjoy the best science images of the year