Fusion Fortnightly | 2026-10-14
No fluff, all facts. TAE files SEC Form S-4. General Fusion reaches 1 keV on LM26. Germany launches a €500 million fusion milestone program.
Companies, financing, and commercial development
TAE+TMTG files SEC Form S-4. The long-awaited filing provides a detailed look at TAE’s finances, the proposed merger, and the negotiations. In August 2024, TAE desperate for financing did a pay-to-play recapitalization: all existing investors with preferred shares were converted into common shares (a big downgrade). Investors had to participate in the Series 12 financing to restore a proportionate amount of their shares to preferred. Those participating by August 15, 2025 received warrants to buy Series 12 preferred shares at just $0.01 per share. This pay-to-play created a strong incentive to keep funding TAE while it was under significant financial pressure. CEO Michl Binderbauer’s compensation subsequently increased sharply. After accepting a temporary 15% salary cut in 2023 to conserve cash, his contractual base salary was $512,000 in 2025 before rising to $1.1 million in May 2026, with a target annual bonus of 120% of salary. He also stands to receive a $500,000 bonus if the merger closes, along with additional restricted stock units. Even after receiving $200 million from TMTG, TAE had only $114 million in cash on June 30, 2026. For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026, it reported a $184 million net loss and used $117 million in operating cash. The filing raises substantial doubt about TAE’s ability to continue as a going concern without additional financing, making the TMTG deal critical to continued experiments and the company’s survival. TMTG provided $200 million through a convertible loan carrying 7% annual interest, with up to another $100 million available following the S-4 filing, subject to the loan’s terms.
The earlier roadmap targeted net-energy capability in 2030 and initial power operations in 2031. The S-4 now projects construction beginning in 2026, first plasma in 2029, a demonstration of fusion energy in 2031, and initial operations “thereafter.” The 2030 net-energy milestone has disappeared and initial operations are no longer scheduled for 2031. The filing is also explicit about the technical risks. TAE’s confinement scaling must continue to hold at much higher temperatures and sufficient densities, controlling a hydrogen-boron fuel mixture with particles of very different masses presents challenges, and achieving net power depends on beam performance, beam–plasma coupling, helium confinement, impurity control, and the efficiencies of the various subsystems and energy conversion.
There’s also some revealing negotiation detail. TAE was looking to de-SPAC in the summer of 2025 before it met TMTG. TAE sought protections against declines in TMTG’s share price and the value of its cryptocurrency holdings. TMTG removed those protections. TAE attempted to restore some of them. TMTG removed them again. The final agreement leaves TAE shareholders exposed to changes in TMTG’s share price before the merger closes. TAE also proceeded without a fairness opinion on the merger for its own shareholders. Barclays said it lacked the consolidated TMTG financial projections necessary to value TMTG and the combined company and provide such an opinion. TAE’s board decided against seeking another adviser’s opinion, citing the timing and TAE’s need for capital. TMTG, by contrast, obtained a fairness opinion from Clear Street. The TAE Board of Directors considered that “TMTG’s name recognition, directors, executives, significant shareholders and their beneficiaries, and broad investor base would provide the potential for new strategic relationships, including with existing TMTG investors or future partners, as well as further credibility and experience with existing and potential regulators and other third parties.” Well then…
TAE+TMTG file SEC Form 8-K. It gives TMTG voting rights in TAE based on the value of the loan it has given TAE, even before the merger is complete.
General Fusion measures electron temperatures above 1 keV on LM26. Thomson scattering measured a peak local electron temperature of 1.09 keV, up from 0.72 keV reported in July, aided by a new diagnostic view closer to the plasma core. A companion paper reports a later peak of 1.18 keV from AXUV measurements and neutron-inferred ion heating from 323 eV to 459 eV. The improved performance is attributed to better electron energy confinement, although plasma temperature still collapses at a compression ratio of 2.7. See the Fusion Conclusion’s July claim check for analysis of the earlier results. An interesting first data point for public market reactions to company-defined milestones: GFUZ trading volume increased to 5–10 times that of previous weeks, and the price briefly went up about 10%, but remains well within the scatter of the last month or so. It looks like the news of 1 keV electrons created interest in but not value for the company.
General Fusion files SEC Form 6-K and 424B3 reporting its 1 keV electron temperature results, with no new information beyond the papers.
General Fusion files SEC Form 424B3 and F-1 in which it registers more than 100 million shares for potential resale. This makes it easier for earlier investors to cash out a large amount of stock, potentially driving down the share price without providing significant value for General Fusion.
Type One Energy closes a $200 million Series B. Total investment in Type One now exceeds $400 million. The funding supports Infinity One, its engineering prototype in Tennessee, but certainly isn’t enough to get to first plasma.
Helical Fusion raises ¥3.23 billion ($20.6 million) in a Series B second close. The company reports approximately ¥13.15 billion ($84 million) in cumulative funding, including grants and loans.
Xcimer secures up to $30.5 million more from DOE’s fusion milestone program. No info on what the new milestones encompass.
Zenithon AI raises $10 million to develop AI models for extreme physics. Founded by Alex Higginbottom and Abetharan Antony, the company is building physics-based AI world models for fusion reactors, rockets, and semiconductor manufacturing.
The 1 Cent Fusion Energy project wraps up. A major conclusion was that the non-fusion core components alone, under their assumptions, would cost 2.9 cents/kWh. Availability and financing were among the largest cost drivers. Fusion fuel was also important because it affects which blanket and breeding systems are needed. They’ve made their source code available on GitHub. After doing this study, two members are going on to found Borealis Fusion to do p-B11 fusion.
Blue Laser Fusion files two SEC Form 4s. Two directors, Paul Rudy (also vice president of business) and Jeffrey Shealy, each purchased 3,637 shares, valued at about $100,000 each.
American Fusion makes up the term “baricity” for fusion and gives other updates, like talking to data centers about providing energy.
American Fusion signs a PR agency. The deal includes commercials on Bloomberg Television and Fox Business Network and Times Square billboards. Where are they getting the money to spend on this?
American Fusion files SEC Form 8-K. $2.88 million in stock compensation for 12 insiders and advisers is to be replaced with up to 288,000 Series C preferred shares. This is to eliminate a provision that required additional shares if the stock price declined, reducing potentially substantial dilution in the future. New conversion restrictions limit insider selling around an exchange listing. The auditor JV CPA resigned, reportedly for health reasons.
American Fusion files SEC Form 3 and Form 4. Chief Revenue Officer Alec Rossa purchased 842,775 shares of American Fusion on the open market September 22, totaling $86,000 and increasing his holdings by 39%.
Supply chain, manufacturing, and enabling technology
CFS places the largest-ever single order (more than 10,000 kilometers) of HTS tape with Fujikura for ARC. This is about the same amount used in SPARC and half that needed for ARC. At today’s prices, that’s a few hundred million dollars.
Avalanche Energy tries Washington’s Tri-Cities region, selecting it for its manufacturing facility.
DIII-D and Kyoto Fusioneering begin developing a divertor for negative-triangularity plasmas. It’s nice that they’re pushing this forward, but looking at the tiny plasma cross section needed to make the negative-triangularity plasma in DIII-D makes it seem like a square peg in a round hole situation.
Larmor mmWave Systems introduces its high-power microwave business. The EPFL Swiss Plasma Center spinout, co-founded by Massimo Carpita and Mackenzie van Rossem, aims to commercialize high-power, high-frequency microwave systems.
Government, regulation, and public programs
Germany launches a €500 million milestone-based fusion development program. The Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation (SPRIND) will administer the program. €500 million is to be made available by 2029 and up to €2.5 billion in longer-term funding. Like the U.S. program, multiple companies will compete for funding tied to technical and financial milestones with independent evaluations.
The U.S.-Japan Technology Prosperity Deal highlights fusion.
DOE’s Genesis Mission announces an award to build a SPARC digital twin. The project targets full-shot predictions in less than 20 minutes, fast enough to inform decisions between experimental shots, with the broader goal of improving SPARC operation and ARC design.
People and hiring
Tokamak Energy hires Paul Buddin as new chief financial officer. Paul was a longtime McLaren employee in finance/business. From supercars to superconductors.
TAE hires Gina McDuffie as chief marketing officer. Gina previously held marketing leadership roles at the Arizona Diamondbacks, DIRECTV, and a couple of companies that provide production gear, IT, and AV. So expect TAE’s marketing production to get kicked up a notch.
Arnold Lumsdaine becomes director of strategic initiatives and partnerships at ORNL. Arnie has worked for nearly two decades in fusion engineering at ORNL.
PBS NOVA’s 90-minute interview with Dennis Whyte on fusion’s future.