Business
Toys aren't just for kids. Mattel and other companies are embracing 'kidults'
Jeremy Hart played with Hot Wheels as a kid, but he eventually grew out of them, tucking the miniature cars away in a toolbox.
Then nostalgia struck when he attended the Hot Wheels convention in California with his son three years ago.
“I get these little glimmers and glimpses of memories and feelings when I look and see those Hot Wheels from my childhood,” Hart said.
Today, the 48-year-old has fully embraced his inner child. He has spent hundreds of dollars on Hot Wheels and is always on the hunt for new ones that replicate vehicles he’s owned or that were featured on TV shows he watched when he was younger, such as “The Fall Guy” and “The Dukes of Hazzard.” Hart proudly displays his collection at Dent Express, the auto body shop he started in Torrance.
Hart is part of a growing number of adults who are buying toys for themselves, reclaiming memories from their childhood and showing off their fandom on their desks and shelves. Some have managed to cash in on their obsessions, building up lucrative followings of toy fans online.
Hot Wheels collector Jeremy Hart.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Toy companies including Mattel, the Lego Group, Hasbro and MGA Entertainment have taken note of the rise of these customers known in the industry as “kidults” and increasingly are making toys with them in mind.
Mattel President and Chief Commercial Officer Steve Totzke said that while the El Segundo-based company has long counted adults among fans of its major brands such as Hot Wheels and Barbie, sales to adults have grown over the last few years. Depending on the brand, he said, adult collectors can account for up to 25% of sales.
“I’m just thrilled that the rest of the industry and society is catching up, because I do believe that play is essential and you should be enjoying toys and joy at all ages,” said Totzke, who has worked at Mattel for more than 20 years.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. toy companies saw sales surge as people stuck at home looked for activities to do. While overall growth has since slowed, sales to people who are at least 18 years old and buying toys for themselves are still going strong, data from market research firm Circana shows.
In the 12 months ending June 2024, U.S. adults tallied more than $7 billion in toy purchases, the figures from Circana show. Some of the top-selling toys for adults include Pokémon, Star Wars, Lego Star Wars sets, Funko Pop! and Squishmallows. From January to April, adults bought more toys than any other age group, surpassing preschoolers for the first time, according to Circana.
In the second quarter, from April to June, sales for adults ages 18 to 34 grew by 10%, while sales for ages 35 and older grew by 9% compared with the same period last year.
Azusa Sakamoto, a 42-year-old nail artist and Barbie superfan, started collecting Barbie dolls and all the accessories and decor tied to the doll when she was a teenager. Known as Azusa Barbie, Sakamoto views Barbie as more of a “fashion icon” than a toy. Some people love Chanel. She loves Barbie.
“I just buy whatever I like, you know, whatever makes me happy,” she said. “I don’t think … age matters.”
Barbie collector Azusa Sakamoto.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Inside her West Hollywood apartment, Sakamoto is living in a Barbie world. Rows of Barbies line pink walls. There’s a Barbie fridge, Barbie window shades and a Barbie nightstand.
Pink-haired Sakamoto said she relates to Barbie’s optimism and independence. She estimates she owns more than 600 Barbies and 300 Barbie shirts, sharing her fandom and recent purchases on social media.
Roughly 43% of adults in the United States bought a toy for themselves in the last year, Circana found in a 2024 survey. Some of the top reasons adults said they bought toys were for socialization, enjoyment and collecting. Others responded they purchased toys to escape from reality, display in their homes or as investments.
Harrison Woodward said receiving a Lego Technic set of a model car reignited his childhood interest in the plastic building pieces that can be connected to make intricate creations.
“I was hooked after that,” he said. “I loved the sense of peace that it gives me. … They’re like 3D puzzles.”
He’s now spent close to $20,000 on Lego sets, with the majority of the purchases made within the last year. After his videos of him buying, building and showcasing Lego sets went viral on TikTok, the 26-year-old began earning payments from the social media platform; he also struck sponsorship deals with retailers and other companies.
The Arizona resident said he makes enough money from his Lego venture that he was able to quit his insurance job several months ago to create online content full-time. On TikTok and Instagram, some of his videos rack up millions of views featuring replicas of the Titanic, the Eiffel Tower and the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a professor of psychology at Temple University, said playing with toys as an adult can be beneficial, helping people foster curiosity, creativity and communication. Adults should be wary, though, if they’re buying dolls as a replacement for making friends in real life.
With people experiencing heightened feelings of loneliness, depression and anxiety while spending more time scrolling on their smartphones, it’s chipped away at social connections adults make, she said.
“They can’t be a substitute for humans,” she said. “But if these toys become a way to get humans to play with other humans again, I’m all for it.”
Juli Lennett, vice president and industry advisor, toys, for Circana, said social media has made it easy for people to find others with the same interests, making it more socially acceptable to buy toys as an adult. Some adults who question whether buying a doll house they never had as a kid is healthy behavior have found reassurance from toy enthusiasts online.
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1. Barbie collector Azusa Sakamoto. 2. Hot Wheels collector Jeremy Hart. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Social media star Charli D’Amelio has shown off her Squishmallows collection on Instagram. Olympic rugby player Sammy Sullivan is a mega-fan of Lego sets. SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher brought a heart-shaped plushie to union bargaining sessions. When Fisher Price unveiled a Little People Collector Britney Spears set in September, blogger Perez Hilton posted “NEED this!” on X, formerly Twitter.
“There is that opportunity to really think about the audience and create more toys that we’ve never seen before for that more adult audience,” Lennett said.
On Mattel Creations, a website for collectors, adults can find limited-edition collectibles that are of higher quality than toys designed for kids.
Several of the items on the site were listed recently as sold out, including a $300 Shogun Warriors Skeletor figure that stands more than 2 feet tall, a miniature $200 Porsche 930 in a display case modeled after a white sculpture by artist Daniel Arsham and $30 brightly colored Magic 8 balls decorated like an astronaut Barbie or a Hot Wheels race car driver.
In 2020, Mattel released a $400 remote-controlled Tesla Cybertruck with a vinyl “cracked” window sticker — a nod to when Tesla CEO Elon Musk smashed the “bulletproof” window on the car.
“There’s an aspect of designing for rarity, and then there’s also an aspect of modern play,” said Chris Down, Mattel’s chief design officer. When designing toys, Down said he and his team at Mattel ask themselves, “How are adult consumers not just playing with something the way that you would play with it as a kid but also playing all the way through to displaying?”
Mattel has partnered with artists, an Italian design company, a streetwear brand and others on toys and products. It has tapped into cultural and entertainment draws such as “Harry Potter,” Pokémon, “Wicked” and the hit television show “Breaking Bad,” creating new figurines based on their characters. The company teamed up with Formula One to build new F1-themed Hot Wheels and has released Little People NFL collector sets. The popularity of the 2023 Barbie movie, which grossed more than $1 billion at the box office, drove sales for the dolls.
Mattel reported net sales of $1.08 billion in the second quarter, down 1% compared with the same period last year. Net income surged to $57 million, more than doubling the total from the previous year.
The Lego Group also has been embracing adult buyers, some of whom call themselves AFOLs (Adult Fan of Lego). On the Lego brand’s website, replicas of the Mona Lisa, cars, plants and more are featured online with the words “Adults Welcome.”
Genevieve Capa Cruz, senior marketing director for adults at the Lego Group, said the company expects sales for both adults and kids to grow.
“Consumer research shows that when adults are building with Lego bricks, they also tend to gift it more to the kids in their lives, and encourage building together, which makes it an even more enjoyable activity for everyone in the family,” she said in a statement.
Other toy companies also have been attracting adult buyers, offering them ways to customize their toys.
MGA Entertainment, the Los Angeles-based company that makes Bratz dolls, sells mini do-it-yourself collectible sets, including one in which fans can make their own wizarding potions from “Harry Potter” or weapons from “The Lord of the Rings.” The company’s Miniverse collection also offers the chance for adults (21 and over, please) to make mini cocktails.
“People love the detail that goes in the toy. It’s like collecting a piece of art,” said Isaac Larian, founder and chief executive of MGA Entertainment.
Adults make up around 15% to 20% of the company’s sales, he said. Those between the ages of 18 and 35 represent the company’s “sweet spot,” but its consumers also can be older. MGA currently is promoting a Kylie Jenner Bratz doll, and it started releasing dolls based on characters from the “Mean Girls” films this month. Both are targeted at young adults.
Hot Wheel collectors like Hart plan to purchase more toys in the future.
“It’ll probably be never-ending for me,” he said. “Once I move up to the next size display case, I’m gonna have a bunch of real estate to fill.”
To understand how Mr. Trump has achieved this omnipresence, The New York Times reviewed the first 329 days of his second term, finding at least one instance each day when he attracted the public’s attention to himself and his actions.
The review encompassed more than 250 media appearances, more than 320 official appearances, and more than 5,000 Truth Social posts or reposts. The analysis shows that while Mr. Trump has lagged his predecessors in his number of official appearances, he has pursued a raft of innovative methods to force himself into the public consciousness on a daily, and sometimes even hourly, basis.
The battery of activity started from the moment he was inaugurated, when he traveled from the Capitol Building to the Capital One Arena to publicly sign a flurry of executive orders.
Since then, he has stayed in the public eye in part by doing things no president has ever done. High-stakes Oval Office meetings, like his negotiations with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, are held on-camera and broadcast live on global news networks. His Q.-and-A. sessions with reporters frequently last an hour or more.
He regularly airs his opinions – on social media, in discursive asides at rallies – about idiosyncratic subjects that range widely across the zeitgeist, from Sydney Sweeney’s sexy denim ads to the redesigned logo of the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain to the mysterious fate of the aviator Amelia Earhart, who vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.
And his engagement with the news media has soared well beyond the start of his first administration.
Through Dec. 14, Mr. Trump took reporters’ questions on 449 occasions, compared with 223 during the same period of his first term. On average, Mr. Trump has interacted with journalists roughly twice a day, doubling his rate from 2017, according to Martha Joynt Kumar, a Towson University political scientist who tracks presidential press interactions. Mr. Trump limits which news outlets can ask questions at small events, but in sheer volume, he is the most media-accessible modern president, and far outpaces his predecessor, Joseph R. Biden Jr.
“Reporters will be in my office asking me for the president’s reaction to a breaking news story,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in an interview. “And I’ll just say to them, ‘I don’t know, why don’t you ask him yourself in 30 minutes?’”
President Trump’s media appearances have soared this year, more than doubling both the Biden administration’s and those of his own first term.
Finding the Cameras
Many of his public moments go viral online, like his diatribe about restoring the name of the Washington Redskins, or the A.I.-generated video meme he posted of himself dribbling a soccer ball with Cristiano Ronaldo in the Oval Office. They take on a life of their own, rippling across social media and dissected and amplified by influencers and mass media platforms alike.
The result is a president whose not-so-inner monologue is injected into our daily lives in myriad ways, when we are watching TV on the weekends or idly scrolling the web – a Greek chorus for our national narrative.
“He’s the most ubiquitous president ever,” said Douglas Brinkley, the presidential historian.
The media strategy aligns with his political strategy.
Dating back to his years as an outspoken real estate developer and reality TV star, Mr. Trump has relished being unavoidable for comment. But at age 79, he has been outdoing his younger self. And there is a logic to his logorrhea.
Mr. Trump’s allies often speak of the political benefits of flooding the zone: pursuing so many policies, ideas, and dramatic restructurings of the normal ways of governance as to overwhelm the system. “All pedal, no brake,” as Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s one-time adviser, has called it.
“We joke internally that he is our ultimate director of communications,” Ms. Leavitt said. “He has incredible media instincts, and he is the final decision maker on all policy, and he has been in a ‘flood the zone,’ ‘do as much as possible’ mindset since he walked into the Oval Office on Jan. 20.”
All presidents benefit from the awesome news-making powers of the office, with its agenda-setting influence over a dedicated global press corps. But Mr. Trump has outstripped his predecessors in whipsawing the public’s attention onto matters small and large – and limiting the level of scrutiny that any one shocking remark or policy proposal receives.
“People can really only focus on a handful of things a day,” said Bill Burton, a deputy White House press secretary under former President Barack Obama. “This attention flood is working for Trump because he is able to do an extraordinary amount of executive actions and very little of it can get attention.”
Or as Mr. Brinkley put it: “He plays to win the day, every day, around the clock.”
His commentary takes on a life of its own.
One of Mr. Trump’s political assets is his instinct for virality.
With a natural feel for the web, Mr. Trump has a knack for amplifying wacky memes and pop culture curios that can drive days of online discourse. Sometimes, coverage of his offhand remarks or late-night social media posts can crowd out the more significant, norm-shattering changes he is making to American governance.
Late one Friday night in May, the president posted an obviously A.I.-generated image of himself as the pope. It struck a nerve.
Mr. Trump had already courted controversy days earlier, after the death of Pope Francis on April 21.
“I’d like to be pope,” the president told reporters who asked about who should become the next pontiff. “That would be my number one choice.”
The comment disturbed some Catholics, who said the notion was crude and insensitive. That reaction seemed only to prompt Mr. Trump to double down, posting the A.I.-generated image to his Truth Social account days later. By the weekend it had become a cultural phenomenon, mocked on “Saturday Night Live” and called out by experts as an example of misleading A.I. content.
After Mr. Trump posts the A.I. image …
May 2
Trump posts A.I. image of himself as Pope
There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President. We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us.
May 3
NYS Catholic Conference says “do not mock us”
May 3
“Saturday Night Live” covers fake image
May 3 Vatican asked about image, declines to comment
May 4
Cardinal Joseph Tobin of New Jersey criticizes image as “not good”
May 4
JD Vance defends Trump on X, calling it a joke … some Catholics were outraged, prompting a news cycle focused on the controversy …
5
Says “the Catholics loved it”
… before Mr. Trump suggested he had nothing to do with it.
Mr. Trump, who is not Catholic, had plenty of defenders, too. They said his commentary and the A.I. image were simply jokes, part of the president’s unique comedic style.
“As a general rule, I’m fine with people telling jokes and not fine with people starting stupid wars that kill thousands of my countrymen,” Vice President JD Vance, who is Catholic, wrote on X.
In his quest for attention, the president is often aided by a cottage industry of right-wing influencers and activists who are primed to syndicate, reinforce and defend whatever content he pushes out each day. For this conservative media ecosystem, Mr. Trump’s messaging and commentary are the raw fuel that drives clicks, shares and views.
On June 7, the president’s visit to a raucous U.F.C. fight – complete with a “Trump dance” entrance into the arena – generated an immediate spike in online interest, including about 50,000 posts on X. Five days later, when he promoted a “Trump gold card” visa, his announcement led to roughly 30,000 posts on X.
A barrage that distracts from bad news.
One pattern in Mr. Trump’s behavior: When his administration is faced with bad news, he launches a fusillade of distraction.
This can take the form of outlandish, out-of-left-field claims about political opponents. Or he might weigh in on a pop culture subject far afield from Washington politics – from the ratings of late-night hosts like Seth Meyers to the physical appearance of a megastar like Taylor Swift.
The events of July 2025 offer a case in point.
As the Jeffrey Epstein files returned to the news – along with speculation that Mr. Trump might appear in them – the president embarked on a breathtaking series of tangents. Mr. Trump claimed without evidence that former President Bill Clinton had bankrolled an effort by senior intelligence officials to frame him for a crime, mused about stripping the actress Rosie O’Donnell of her U.S. citizenship, and accused the singer Beyoncé of accepting millions of dollars to endorse his erstwhile rival, former Vice President Kamala Harris.
July 8
F.B.I. publishes memo about Epstein files On July 8, the F.B.I. said it would not declassify more Epstein files.
10
Claimed intelligence officials tried to frame him
10
Pushed to defund NPR and PBS
10 Directed ICE to arrest protesters
12
Threatened Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship
15
Claimed Adam Schiff engaged in mortgage fraud Over the following days, Mr. Trump seemed to lash out in every direction.
On July 18, the Justice Department filed a request to unseal grand jury testimony about Mr. Epstein, again raising questions about Mr. Trump’s involvement. The president promptly lobbed insults at late-night talk show hosts, dismissed the Epstein affair as “fake news” and shared fresh claims about a supposed Obama administration plot to undermine him after the 2016 election.
July 18
Request filed to unseal grand jury testimony
On July 18, the Department of Justice filed a request — later denied — to unseal grand jury testimony.
20
Criticized Washington Commanders name
21
Called the “Russia hoax” the “crime of the century”
22
Called Epstein controversy “fake news”
22
Criticized Kimmel and Fallon
24 Criticized Federal Reserve chairman
Over the following days, Mr. Trump bounced from topic to topic.
On July 25, The Wall Street Journal published a major scoop: The paper had unearthed a risqué birthday letter that Mr. Trump had apparently written to Mr. Epstein in 2003. Mr. Trump responded with his attack on Beyoncé and revived his threat to revoke the broadcast licenses of TV networks. Then he announced the imminent construction of an enormous gilded ballroom at the White House, at a cost of $200 million. (He has since revised the cost upward to $400 million.)
Asked if there was a deliberate strategy to distract from negative news, Ms. Leavitt noted that every administration seeks to minimize unhelpful headlines.
“Yes, there have been times in which we’ve tried to do that, but also often it just happens naturally, because the president is willing to weigh in on so many subjects,” she said. “Sometimes it’s really not deliberate. It’s just him speaking his mind on whatever news cycle or news story is brought to him in that moment.”
He has added tricks to his arsenal.
Mr. Trump’s devotion to Truth Social mirrors the hair-trigger Twitter habit of his first term; on one recent December evening, he posted 158 times between 9 p.m. and midnight. And he has continued to appear on Fox News with certain preferred hosts.
But this year, he has added to his media arsenal by appearing in many more public spaces that fall outside of a president’s typical itinerary.
Mr. Trump has stopped by a Washington Commanders N.F.L. game, popped up in the New York Yankees locker room, attended the Ryder Cup golf tournament and the men’s tennis final at the U.S. Open, sat ringside at numerous U.F.C. fights, and traveled to the Daytona 500. He is the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl. When FIFA staged the Club World Cup final in New Jersey, Mr. Trump not only attended, but joined the winning team onstage for the trophy ceremony.
The net effect is a sense of inescapability, that no corner of American life remains Trump-free – which itself amounts to a potent expression of presidential authority and command. “His power, in part,” said Mr. Burton, the former Obama aide, “comes from the attention that people give him, or that he forces on them.”
Can it ever be too much?
In the fall of 2009, President Barack Obama appeared on David Letterman’s talk show, gave interviews to CNBC and Men’s Health magazine, and made the rounds of all five major network Sunday shows. Washington was abuzz about whether he was overexposed.
That debate sounds quaint today. But the question of whether a president can be too visible remains open.
“The public is being desensitized” to Mr. Trump’s omnipresence, argued Mr. Brinkley, the historian. “It starts becoming blather. The enemy for Trump isn’t Democrats; it’s the public being bored with the show.”
Ms. Leavitt said that if there was a risk to his ubiquity, “President Trump would not be president right now.” She added: “He is a businessman who speaks his mind and tells it like it is, and sometimes people don’t like that. But obviously the vast majority of our country does, or else he wouldn’t be in this office.”
During Mr. Trump’s first term, the public eventually tired of his frenzied pace. And in some ways, Mr. Trump appears to be slowing down physically as he approaches his 80th birthday in June (which he will celebrate in part by staging a nationally broadcast U.F.C. fight on the White House lawn). He has appeared to doze at some Oval Office meetings, and he is holding fewer formal public events than he did at this point in 2017.
Still, Mr. Trump and his team have embraced the everywhere-all-at-once nature of modern media. Average Americans, busy with work and family, do not tune in for daytime news conferences or Cabinet meetings. And 6:30 p.m. newscasts and local newspapers are no longer the primary vessels by which Americans learn about their commander-in-chief.
Instead, politics now suffuses our lives as a kind of ambient noise – via TikTok videos, social media posts, YouTube talk shows and family Facebook messages – never fully separate from our leisure pursuits. “Right now the game is attention, in terms of what’s culturally breaking through,” Mr. Burton said. “The fact that so much message exists is the point.”
Mr. Trump has both propelled this merging of culture and politics, and continues to strategically exploit it. In December, he became the first president to personally host the Kennedy Center Honors, comparing himself onstage to Johnny Carson and musing that he would do a better job than Jimmy Kimmel.
“This is the greatest evening in the history of the Kennedy Center,” Mr. Trump told the crowd. “Not even a contest. There has never been anything like it.”
His performance will air in prime time on CBS on Dec. 23.
Photo and video sources: Graham Dickie/The New York Times; Doug Mills/The New York Times; Roll Call Factba.se; PBS; Mauro Pimentel/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; Kenny Holston/The New York Times; The New York Times; Annabelle Gordon/Reuters; Eric Lee/The New York Times; Fox; Cheriss May for The New York Times; Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press; Margo Martin, via Storyful; Mark Abramson for The New York Times; Global News; Al Drago/Getty Images; Fox News; Dave Sanders for The New York Times; Pete Marovich for The New York Times; Ted Shaffrey/Associated Press … Show all
President Trump’s media company is merging with a nuclear fusion energy firm in a $6-billion deal aimed at generating more power amid growing demand from power-hungry artificial intelligence data centers.
The merger between Trump Media & Technology and TAE Technologies could lead to one of the world’s first publicly traded fusion energy companies, the two companies said Thursday.
What is TAE Technologies?
TAE Technologies is a private company based in Foothill Ranch, Calif. It has been raising funds for commercial-scale nuclear fusion, a method of energy production that supporters say could revolutionize access to electricity. Founded in 1998, the company has built and operated five fusion reactors and raised more than $1.3 billion.
Fusion uses the same process that powers the sun to produce potentially limitless energy. Experts say it hasn’t been achieved on a large scale because the process is volatile and expensive. TAE is trying to develop the technology needed to reduce the size, cost and complexity of fusion reactors.
“Our talented team, through its commitment and dedication to science, is poised to solve the immense global challenge of energy scarcity,” TAE Chief Executive Michl Binderbauer said in a statement. “Recent breakthroughs have prepared us to… commercialize our fusion technology.”
What is the political history of Truth Social?
Truth Social was launched in 2022 as Trump created an alternative to mainstream social media, which was increasingly restricting and blocking his posts and profiles, as well as those of his allies and supporters. It began trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange through a 2024 merger with a special purpose acquisition company.
While most social media platforms have lifted restrictions on Trump’s posts, he still primarily posts on his own platform.
Though Trump and companies he is associated with control more than a 40% stake in the company, much of his investment is managed by others to avoid a conflict of interest during his term as president. Some analysts suggest his indirect association with a new company in a highly regulated industry could also lead to issues.
TAE will need significant investment and regulation to advance, which makes Trump’s ties a major conflict, Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, told the Associated Press.
“He’s jumping into this industry just like he jumped into cryptocurrency a couple of years ago,” Painter said. “Just as the United States government is gonna get all involved in it. And it’s so obvious that there’s a huge conflict of interest.”
Trump Media shares, which had fallen more than 80% from their 2024 peak, have skyrocketed around 50% since the deal was announced.
The company now has a market value of more than $4.5 billion.
Why are the companies merging?
The parent company of Trump’s social media site, Truth Social, Trump Media & Technology, previously had little to do with energy production. The company agreed to merge with Alphabet-backed TAE Technologies, with the aim of paving the way for easier access to abundant electricity.
The merger aims to help both companies diversify and raise more money.
It is an attempt to combine Trump Media’s “significant access to capital” with TAE’s “leading fusion technology,” the companies said in a release.
They plan to begin construction in 2026 on the first-ever utility-scale fusion power plant.
“Fusion power plants are expected to provide economic, abundant and dependable electricity that would help America win the AI revolution,” the release said.
The boom in popularity of AI chatbots such as ChatGPT has created a seemingly insatiable new demand for power.
The Georgia Institute of Technology says modern AI data centers use as much electricity as a small city. As AI models grow, they demand even more power.
What are the terms of the deal?
The all-stock transaction announced this week values each share of TAE Technologies at $53.89, although it is a private company. Trump Media has agreed to provide $200 million in cash to TAE upon closing, expected in mid-2026.
When the merger is complete, TAE and Trump Media shareholders will each own about 50% of the combined company.
Trump Media will be the holding company for TAE, TAE Power Solutions and TAE Life Sciences.
The U.S. Space Force announced Friday it has awarded satellite contracts with a combined value of about $1.6 billion to Rocket Lab in Long Beach and to the Redondo Beach Space Park campus of Northrop Grumman.
The contracts by the Space Development Agency will fund the construction by each company of 18 satellites for a network in development that will provide warning of advanced threats such as hypersonic missiles.
Northrop Grumman has been awarded contracts for prior phases of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, a planned network of missile defense and communications satellites in low Earth orbit.
The contract announced Friday is valued at $764 million, and the company is now set to deliver a total of 150 satellites for the network.
The $805-million contract awarded to Rocket Lab is its largest to date. It had previously been awarded a $515 million contract to deliver 18 communications satellites for the network.
Founded in 2006 in New Zealand, the company builds satellites and provides small-satellite launch services for commercial and government customers with its Electron rocket. It moved to Long Beach in 2020 from Huntington Beach and is developing a larger rocket.
“This is more than just a contract. It’s a resounding affirmation of our evolution from simply a trusted launch provider to a leading vertically integrated space prime contractor,” said Rocket Labs founder and chief executive Peter Beck in online remarks.
The company said it could eventually earn up to $1 billion due to the contract by supplying components to other builders of the satellite network.
Also awarded contracts announced Friday were a Lockheed Martin group in Sunnyvalle, Calif., and L3Harris Technologies of Fort Wayne, Ind. Those contracts for 36 satellites were valued at nearly $2 billion.
Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo, acting director of the Space Development Agency, said the contracts awarded “will achieve near-continuous global coverage for missile warning and tracking” in addition to other capabilities.
Northrop Grumman said the missiles are being built to respond to the rise of hypersonic missiles, which maneuver in flight and require infrared tracking and speedy data transmission to protect U.S. troops.
Beck said that the contracts reflects Rocket Labs growth into an “industry disruptor” and growing space prime contractor.
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