Wheeler G.

Manufacturing @AaloAtomics

[Wheeler G. @18WheelerG]

“An absence of fear of the future or of veneration for the past. One who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail. What is past is useful only as it suggests ways and means for progress.”

- Henry Ford, My Life and Work

[Wheeler G. @18WheelerG]

I am increasingly astonished by the toolkit handed to engineers in the form of the periodic table.

Zirconium and hafnium are so alike chemically that separating them takes multi-stage solvent extraction — but neutronically they’re opposites. Zr is nearly transparent, Hf absorbs 600x more. Zircon ore comes with ~2% Hf in it. Strip it out and you have fuel cladding. Leave it and your core won’t go critical.

A sprinkle of dysprosium and terbium in a magnet lets it work at 200°C instead of falling apart at 80.

Going from .03% to .08% carbon in stainless can destroy its corrosion resistance.

A few % rhenium in a turbine blade is why long-haul flying is cheap.

The coolest tech in the world runs on elements you can’t pronounce.

[Wheeler G. @18WheelerG]

These photos look familiar

@AaloAtomics

[U.S. Department of Energy @ENERGY]

The Energy Department has selected 5 states to host potential Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses — securing the domestic nuclear fuel cycle.

These campuses will generate billions of dollars in economic activity, expand domestic manufacturing, and create thousands of jobs.

[Wheeler G. @18WheelerG]

@AmX_ZaxTr Stainless steel is incredible across the board

[Matt Loszak @MattLoszak]

Just got to meet President Trump, pretty surreal experience.

I immigrated two and a half years ago and at that point we were a two-person company with an idea.

Today we've turned on a reactor and got invited to the White House.

Wild. This country is incredible. The future for nuclear and America is bright 🇺🇸

[Aalo Atomics @AaloAtomics]

The ideal nuclear product for data centers, made in America. Join: https://t.co/5EPq2mdCDm

[Wheeler G. @18WheelerG]

Magnets are unbelievably important

Every electric motor and generator uses magnets

[Zenno Astronautics @zennospace]

“I hope you’re gonna do magnets. Somebody out there, I hope, you’re all brilliant people, magnets. Do magnets, okay? I’ll tell you how to make money. Do magnets. You’re doing a lot of great stuff, do magnets. Because one thing we don’t have, but we’re getting close, but do magnets.”

[Wheeler G. @18WheelerG]

Welcome to the startup Renaissance

[Noah Schochet @noah_schochet]

Today, we’re announcing that we’ve raised $115 million in funding, including a $100M Series A led by @kleinerperkins.

America has lost the ability to build, and we’re here to restore it. My co-founder, @NoahMcGuinn, and I left our jobs at @SpaceX , where we worked on programs including Starship, Starshield, and @Starlink, to build a company that will solve construction’s greatest challenges.

Infrastructure is the foundation of civilization, and construction is the precursor to innovation. If America wants to build a brighter future for the next generation, we have to make it faster, cheaper, and safer to build.

That’s where @TerraFirma_Inc comes in. We’re a new type of company, a robotic construction company that builds the full technology stack needed to deliver an order-of-magnitude improvement in one of the world’s oldest, largest, most important, but least efficient industries.

We are building technology that expands what’s possible in construction on Earth, and then we'll use that same technology to build megastructures and colonies on the Moon and Mars.

We’ve made tremendous progress over the past year, growing the company more than 10x in the last 12 months. We are performing projects across the world. By the end of October 2026, we are on track to operate 3 of the top 3 largest robotic construction fleets in the world, each on a different continent, bringing unprecedented speed, scale, and efficiency to some of the world’s most complex critical infrastructure projects.

This funding will allow us to step on the gas and scale our manufacturing, software, operations, and construction deployments, including work on massive commercial and government contracts.

We’re building the future of construction right here in Austin, Texas, and scaling it globally. If you want to be part of the team changing the world, now and on Mars, join us.

Our Series A was led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Glade Brook Capital Partners, BANNER VC, Saga Ventures, Trust Ventures, Definition, PEAK6, Magnetar Capital, and Ravelin Capital. Huge thanks to all of our angel investors, friends, and family who have helped and supported us throughout this journey.

Apply here: https://t.co/BmXHSGJQQk

[Jared Hoffman @hotwasps]

@freshbreff @18WheelerG Little did you know: the icing is actually … crack

[Wheeler G. @18WheelerG]

“We get some of our best results from letting fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert”

- Henry Ford, My Life and Work

[Wheeler G. @18WheelerG]

@SpaceX Im still working on my first first launch

[Wheeler G. @18WheelerG]

In addition to crack marketing, they are quite good at nuclear marketing

[Matt Loszak @MattLoszak]

PS, our crack marketing team also updated the website this week and it might be the coolest thing I've ever seen. https://t.co/qozueQ7unx

[Eric Jorgenson 📚 ☀️ @EricJorgenson]

I said "WOW" 4 times in 15 seconds of scrolling.

Unbelievable website:

[Wheeler G. @18WheelerG]

Single term limits

Pro - no more career politicians
Con - unelected bureaucrats who survive many elected officials become the most knowledgeable and powerful people in the office

[Aalo Atomics @AaloAtomics]

Aalo Atomics brought a commercial-scale advanced reactor to initial criticality on July 4, 2026 at 12:20 AM (MT).

This means the President’s goal of at least three criticalities by July 4 has been surpassed, making "4 by the 4th" a reality.

Read more ⬇️

[Yasir Arafat @yasir_fission]

We’ve gone critical.

At 12:20 am on July 4th, Aalo sustained a controlled fission chain reaction for the first time. We have officially surpassed the goal of President Trump’s Executive Order 14301, achieving 4 advanced nuclear reactor criticalities by America’s 250th birthday.

This is a zero-power criticality to validate our supply chain, reactor physics and control systems for our 10 MWe full-powered reactor, the Aalo-X, targeting power operations next year.

Everything was built at full scale: fuel, moderator, control systems, etc., so we understand system performance at its commercial scope.

That also meant tackling four of the most difficult things in nuclear with this criticality milestone:

 ✅ Ground-up construction of our reactor facility
✅ Manufacturing the reactor in our factory and shipping them by road
✅ Assembling our own fuel assemblies using commercial UO2
✅ Standing up training, safety, and operational programs to become our own nuclear operator

I am proud to say we have accomplished all four goals, along with achieving criticality.

The reactor building was constructed in 36 days and construction to criticality was achieved in under 8 months. That’s the fastest nuclear build in the last 80 years.

A massive congratulations to the Aalo Atomics team and our partners. Many thanks to Idaho National Laboratory, the DOE-Idaho Operations Office, and the Office of Nuclear Energy for their immense support in enabling this milestone and dedicated to the American nuclear resurgence.

[Wheeler G. @18WheelerG]

@MattLoszak Hardest I’ve ever worked. Totally worth it. Now back to the factory for the next one

[Matt Loszak @MattLoszak]

Very excited to announce that at 12:20am on the 4th of July, Aalo achieved criticality on our first full-scale reactor.

We cut it close, but we pulled it off!!

Working towards this goal with such an incredible group of humans has been the most fulfilling period of my life. This moment has been three years in the making.

Last year, Executive Order 14301 called for at least three new reactors to go critical before July 4th, 2026.

As of late last Friday night, that goal has been surpassed!

When the EO was announced, we immediately sat down to figure out what the most ambitious scope would be, while still being potentially achievable by July 4th.

Some of the team proposed doing simplified designs with smaller fuel loads, or building in existing facilities.

One thing was clear: We wouldn't have time to integrate a full-scale sodium heat-removal loop to bring the reactor to its full 30 MWt.

So here’s where we landed:

➡️ We purchased the entire commercial-scale fuel load. This is enough fuel to operate at 30 MWt / 10 MWe for 3 years before refueling. To my knowledge, it’s the largest fuel load that’s been taken critical in the DOE pilot program, by far.

➡️ We built a full-scale reactor vessel in our factory, and loaded in our commercial graphite layout. All the dimensions, vessel thickness, and manufacturing techniques are essentially the same as we will use for the imminent commercial version. There will be a few minor tweaks for sodium flow and full-power, but nothing major.

➡️ We built an entirely new reactor facility at the Idaho National Lab. Building a building is easy. Building a new reactor facility comes with a mountain of paperwork, policies, operation and training procedures, security, instrumentation and control, and more.

Zero-power criticality might seem like a small step, but I can tell you, going through the exercise of building a reactor and taking it to criticality has been extremely valuable.

The learnings on regulatory, ops, manufacturing, supply chain, QA, economics, engineering, and design will accelerate our path through to the final iteration at full-power.

America is blessed to have a recent Cambrian explosion of startups in nuclear, all going after different markets, technologies, and strategies.

I’m excited that sodium, gas, salt, and new PWRs are all getting pushed forward once again. The best outcome for humanity is to have all these advance in parallel, as quickly as possible, while maintaining safety.

Thanks again to our amazing team, DOE, INL, BEA, and everyone else who helped us get to where we are today.

This could not have happened anywhere else. Happy birthday, America!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

There has never been a better time for nuclear energy. The Second Atomic Age has begun, and this one will be here to stay.

[Wheeler G. @18WheelerG]

@AaloAtomics Nice work Garrett and Bryce