A $6 billion nuclear deal has Trump's name all over it. It's raising serious ethics concerns

The Trump business empire's expansion into nuclear fusion is alarming ethics experts, who warn it poses glaring conflicts of interest and risks the federal government playing favorites in what could be the holy grail of clean energy.

Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) shocked Wall Street last week by arranging a $6 billion marriage with TAE Technologies, a Google-backed company at the leading edge of fusion energy.

The merger means that soon, President Donald Trump will simultaneously have a major financial interest in a company whose fortunes will be influenced by the actions of a government that Trump himself presides over.

Nuclear fusion companies are regulated by the federal government and will likely need Uncle Sam's deep research and even deeper pockets to become commercially viable. The merger needs to be approved by federal regulators - some of whom were nominated by Trump.

"There is a clear conflict of interest here," Richard Painter, the top ethics official under former President George W. Bush, told CNN in a phone interview. "Every other president since the Civil War has divested from business interests that would conflict with official duties. President Trump has done the opposite."

Painter, who is now a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, said anyone other than the president or the vice president could be committing a crime if they participated in a US government matter that they knew they had a financial interest in.

"It's only legal because the criminal conflict of interest statute does not apply to the president," Painter said, adding that while it is "technically legal" he doesn't believe presidents should be excluded from the law.

The fusion deal caused an immediate boost to Trump's net worth. Trump Media's share price skyrocketed 42% when the merger was announced on Thursday. That increased the value of the stake Trump owns through a trust, by $500 million to $1.7 billion. Trump Media's share price continued to climb Friday, increasing the value of that stake to above $1.8 billion.

The White House rejected concerns about a conflict of interest. "The media's continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest are irresponsible and reinforce the public's distrust in what they read. Neither the President nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest," Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement to CNN.

After winning the election last fall, Trump transferred his dominant stake in Trump Media to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. Trump is the sole beneficiary of that trust, which is controlled by his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who also plans to sit on the combined company's board of directors.

Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who studies government ethics, said the transfer to a trust is irrelevant when it comes to a conflict of interest. "It's utterly meaningless. As a matter of ethics, it's BS," she said.

Painter agrees the transfer to a trust doesn't matter because Trump still has a financial interest. "That's like saying, 'I don't own a piece of property just because I hired a property manager to take care of it,'" Painter said. Painter said there is a simple way for Trump to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest: "He should divest. Divest from nuclear fusion, social media and cryptocurrency," Painter said.

Rep. Don Beyer, a Democrat from Virginia who co-chairs the House Fusion Energy Caucus, told CNN in a phone interview that he was "stunned" by the Trump Media deal. "I hate the thought of a president who puts his name on the Kennedy Center putting his foot on the scale of who the winners and losers are in fusion energy," Beyer said.