The New Jersey Financier Behind Trump Media’s Pivot Into Nuclear Energy

President Trump’s media company was headed in the wrong direction, and Mark Angelo was ready to try something different. Very different.

Angelo’s Yorkville Advisors, a small New Jersey investment firm, wasn’t just a large stakeholder in Trump Media & Technology DJT 0.83%increase; up pointing triangle, home of Truth Social. It was an adviser and dealmaker, and by last year, with the company racking up losses and its stock in the tank, Angelo was open to ideas.

A radical one began to emerge as he chatted with a close associate during a car ride into New York. The conversation set off a chain reaction that ended with Trump’s social-media firm agreeing to merge with a nuclear-fusion company, making the first family a player on the energy industry’s frontier.

It is the sort of unorthodox deal that has helped the Trumps rapidly expand their business empire into new industries. To pull it off, they have turned to a growing roster of financial partners who aren’t part of Wall Street’s blue-chip elite but are comfortable raising money and striking deals that might seem risky to others. In other words, guys like Angelo.