The Department of Energy this month (Oct. 17) announced it had picked four firms for a gateway to some $2.7 billion in taxpayer funding to produce “high assay low enriched uranium” (HALEU) fuel for the potential advanced reactor technologies now seeking government approval and private and public financial support.
Under the DOE program, run by the agency’s Idaho Operations Office, each of the four will receive an immediate $2 million, placeholders allowing them to make detailed pitches later for access to the big pot of $2.7 billion.
Three of the four were familiar subsidiaries of well-known, deeply-experienced nuclear enrichment firms, all publicly traded: London-based Urenco (LSE:44ZP) subsidiary Urenco USA, for its Louisiana Energy Services; Centrus Energy’s (NYSE:LEU) American Centrifuge operation; France’s Orano (NYSE: ORANY).
The fourth selection was a head-scratcher: largely unknown, privately held San Francisco-based General Matter, Inc.
Who the heck is General Matter? DOE provided no information about General Matter. The firm is silent. It’s website is largely a blank slate, containing only the company name and two email addresses: media@generalmatter.com and careers@generalmatter.com. Email sent to the firm went unanswered, as did email requests for information to DOE.
It turns out that the firm is a startup linked to prominent, billionaire Republican venture capitalists. It looks like it was started entirely to take advantage of the DOE request for proposals, initially unveiled in June 2023 and formally issued Jan. 9. The firm was registered with the California Secretary of State on Feb. 28, noting that it was originally formed as a Delaware corporation on January 25, adding that the company’s age was “9 months.” The California filing identifies Scott Nolan as the CEO.
The address for General Matter is in San Francisco’s Presidio district at 1 Letterman Drive. That’s also the address for Founders Fund, a $13 billion venture capital firm founded by radical libertarian and PayPay founder Peter Thiel. There are also ties to erratic investor Elon Musk of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter fame. Nolan is a partner in Founders Fund, where he is described as “an early employee of SpaceX, where he helped develop the original Falcon propulsion systems and multiple Dragon subsystems.”
The Observer identified Nolan as among the 100s of stakeholders who helped Musk acquire Twitter and turn the social media platform into X. Musk, of course, was one of PayPal’s original investors.
London’s Financial Times has provided the only major media coverage of the company. In a Sept. 30 article headlined “Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund back nuclear fuel startup,” the FT reported, “Founders Fund, the venture capital firm co-founded by billionaire investor Peter Thiel, is backing a nuclear start-up aiming to produce the fuel used to power the latest generation of reactors, as artificial intelligence groups look to atomic power to meet their electricity needs….Founders Fund declined to comment.”
General Matter appears to be a product of what the New York Times has called the “PayPal Mafia,” a group that revolves around radical reactionary Thiel and includes Musk. In addition to being fantastically rich and always seeking new billion-dollar investment opportunities, this coterie of wealth is also playing a role in presidential politics. The Times story was headlined, “How Tech Billionaires Became the G.O.P.’s New Donor Class.”
Thiel was Sen. JD Vance’s mentor and benefactor. The Times reported that Thiel and Musk helped choreograph Trump’s selection of Ohio Sen. Vance as the vice presidential running mate: “Musk called Trump on Vance’s behalf, telling him on the night before Vance was chosen that he would be a good ‘insurance policy’ in case the next attempt on his life was successful. Thiel also made a personal call, and it was a tough conversation. He had been disappointed by Trump’s presidency, which he found insufficiently revolutionary, and he told friends that he was pained by the excommunication he suffered socially. In 2023, Trump asked him for a big donation; Thiel refused, and the two men hadn’t spoken since then. Now he encouraged Trump to not hold his anger at him against Vance. He also offered a form of penance, casually dropping into the conversation that he had in fact made a donation in the millions to a pro-Trump legal group.”
The political connection could pay off for General Matter if Trump wins the White House. DOE won’t be doling out the HALEU funds for some time, well after the November election. Anyone who has followed DOE’s long history knows that politics, often as much as technical capability, informs the agency’s decision making.
The Open Secrets web site reports that, based on data from the Senate Office of Public Records, General Matter’s 2024 lobbying expenditures totaled $10,000.
–Kennedy Maize
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