In late 2022, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved a historic nuclear fusion breakthrough by creating a fusion reaction that produced more energy than the lasers used to create it.
This milestone sparked a tech arms race, exciting investors about the potential for fusion to create clean, safe energy. However, despite the incredible promise and investment interest, concrete opportunities to invest in commercial nuclear fusion remain quite limited. The technology is rapidly advancing but still faces significant challenges to commercialization and offers few entry points for investors.
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The average retail investor does not have easy access to private equity funds or private, pure-play nuclear fusion stocks. But there are still some publicly traded companies positioned to benefit from investments in private fusion technology companies, the transition of legacy energy businesses to renewable energy sources and the application of artificial intelligence technology to solving the fusion problem. However, fusion investors should understand commercial nuclear fusion could still potentially be decades away, and it’s not obvious at this point which companies will ultimately win the fusion race.
Alberto Jimenez Crespo, senior global research analyst at Aristotle, says nuclear fusion could eventually provide virtually limitless clean energy. However, with only a handful of investment options available and major fusion hurdles left to be cleared, he’s taking a wait-and-see approach.
“While fusion is a fascinating area of scientific innovation, we currently see no companies in this space that meet our investment criteria. For now, we continue to study developments closely but remain on the sidelines, with no client capital invested in these technologies,” Jimenez Crespo says.
Nevertheless, investors looking to get in early on fusion technology should consider these five ways to invest in nuclear fusion today:
— Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III (ticker: SVAC)
— Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (DJT)
— Chevron Corp. (CVX)
— Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)
Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III (SVAC)
In January, General Fusion announced it would become the first publicly traded nuclear fusion pure-play stock via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp III.
General Fusion is a Canadian company developing magnetized target fusion (MTF) technology with the goal of bringing zero-carbon fusion energy to market by the early-to-mid-2030s. The company’s Lawson Machine 26 (LM26) at its Canadian headquarters achieved first plasma last February and first plasma compression in April. LM26 is the first MTF demonstration machine that is built on a commercially relevant scale. General Fusion is now working toward a series of results that will prove MTF can be commercially viable, including demonstrating fusion conditions of more than 100 million degrees Celsius and meeting the Lawson criterion for net energy production.
General Fusion’s SPAC merger is on track for mid-2026, and its post-merger ticker will be GFUZ on the Nasdaq.
Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (DJT)
Trump Media & Technology Group is a media company focused on prioritizing free speech. It is the parent company of social media platform Truth Social, which was created in 2022 after U.S. President Donald Trump was kicked off Facebook and Twitter in 2021.
In one of the most unexpected deals on Wall Street in recent years, Trump Media announced a $6 billion merger with nuclear fusion power company TAE Technologies in December. The merger immediately made Trump Media one of the only publicly traded fusion companies.
TAE has been researching and improving its fusion technology for decades, and the company believes it is on the brink of commercial application. In fact, Trump Media and TAE say the combination of TAE’s fusion reactors and DJT’s access to significant capital have the combined company positioned to begin construction of the world’s first utility-scale fusion power plant by the end of 2026.
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Alphabet is one of the world’s largest online search and advertising companies and is the parent company of Google and YouTube. In July 2022, Alphabet was part of a $250 million fundraising round for TAE Technologies.
In 2025, Google participated in an $863 million fundraising round for private nuclear fusion technology company Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) and struck a deal to buy 200 megawatts of clean fusion power from CFS once it gets its ARC plant up and running. Just months later, Google’s AI research arm, DeepMind, announced a new research partnership with CFS.
Investors got a preview of what nuclear fusion could mean for Alphabet’s share price when the stock jumped 5% the day the initial fusion breakthrough was announced in December 2022. In a fusion arms race that involves extremely advanced technology, Alphabet’s industry-leading AI technology could give TAE and CFS an edge in cracking the fusion code in the next several years.
Chevron Corp. (CVX)
Chevron is a global oil major that operates exploration and production, refining and marketing, and petrochemical businesses. Chevron also participated in the funding round for TAE Technologies in July 2022. In addition, Chevron has invested in Zap Energy, a startup developing a next-generation modular nuclear reactor with the goal of producing commercially scalable fusion. In November, Zap achieved a record plasma pressure with its newest sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch fusion reactor.
Clean energy investors often see legacy oil and gas companies like Chevron as obsolete dinosaurs, but Chevron is taking an aggressive approach to position itself well for a green future. In addition to its investments in nuclear fusion, Chevron has pledged to invest $10 billion into clean energy technology such as renewable fuels, geothermal energy and carbon capture.
While Chevron investors wait for nuclear fusion technology to advance, they can also enjoy Chevron’s 3.9% dividend.
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)
Microsoft is the world’s largest software company, best known for Windows, Office and Azure cloud services. In addition to backing TAE Technologies, Microsoft has a power-purchase deal with Helion Energy to provide Microsoft with fusion power by around 2028.
One of Helion’s earliest and largest financial backers has been Sam Altman, the CEO of AI technology company OpenAI. OpenAI is best known as the developer of the ChatGPT platform. Microsoft has invested nearly $14 billion in OpenAI and has several major partnerships with the AI leader. Helion began construction of its Orion fusion plant in 2025, and the company expects its seventh-generation Polaris prototype reactor will be the first to generate electricity from fusion.
Microsoft also has fusion research collaborations with the nuclear fusion project ITER and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
Given its AI technology and its relationships with Helion, OpenAI and Altman, Microsoft could play a central role in fusion’s future.
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Nuclear Fusion: 5 Ways to Invest in the Energy Breakthrough originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 02/13/26: This story was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
