looks like that article didn't read this article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42221756

2 billion dollars over 5 years? That's peanuts! If anything I would increase spending to a billion dollars a year. Would still dedicate most of the budget to accelerating the energy transition, which is trillion of dollars worth of stuff.

fusion is the ultimate clean energy source. we shouldn't give up on it just because it's a difficult problem