Scott Nolan

Founder and CEO @GeneralMatter, partner @FoundersFund, early engineer @SpaceX.

[Jared Isaacman @rookisaacman]

@MarkWhittington A nuclear-powered future for @NASA exploration is inevitable. SR-1 Freedom is just the beginning 🇺🇸

[Scott Nolan @ScottNolan]

Today is the one year anniversary of the nuclear executive orders.

Since then, @ENERGY and @SecretaryWright have been unlocking the nuclear future we were once promised.

For the private sector 99%+ of the work remains, but an abundant, high-energy sci-fi future is ahead.

[Ti Morse @ti_morse]

My first interview with US Secretary of Energy @SecretaryWright and @ScottNolan, Founder of @GeneralMatter.

This conversation is on nuclear and how we're going to power the AI data center buildout.

0:07 Powering the AI data center boom
3:25 Biggest energy bottlenecks over the next five years
6:03 Ramping power generation before we have SMRs
16:06 Bridging the nuclear transition with natural gas
21:39 What if we’re underestimating how much power we’ll need for AI
27:10 Staying ahead of China
34:07 Why AI is hated + the fear of AI data centers driving up electricity prices
40:21 Increasing baseload capacity
42:50 Building hundreds of gigawatts by 2050
49:37 Copying the SpaceX playbook
53:14 Incentivizing founders to build ahead of demand
59:03 “If you want to build big things in America, come talk to the government”

[David Sacks @DavidSacks]

Back-of-envelope numbers for 1 gigawatt data center:

All-in Capex: ~$50 bn
Enterprise revenue generated: ~$25-30 bn/year
Electricity cost: $1-2 bn/year

~2 year payback.

The boom is real.

[Scott Nolan @ScottNolan]

Japan is one of America’s closest allies and is turning its nuclear reactors back on. The goal: 20% of the grid by 2030.

As we restore US enrichment and meet domestic demand, with the support of @EximBankUS we are ready to help Japan secure the fuel it needs.

[James Riney🐠Coral Capital @james_riney]

Scott Nolan (@ScottNolan ) was employee ~30 at SpaceX. He spent over a decade at Founders Fund backing Anduril, Radiant, and Crusoe Energy. In 2023, he went looking for a company enriching uranium domestically. There was none. So he started General Matter (@generalmatter ).

The U.S. once produced 86% of the world's enriched uranium. By 2013 it was zero. Russia filled the gap. China is scaling fast. Meanwhile, every advanced reactor company in America was hitting the same wall: no domestic fuel supply.

General Matter is changing that. $900M DOE contract. First facility in Paducah, Kentucky, the exact site where the U.S. last enriched uranium. And just weeks ago in Tokyo, a $2.4B EXIM financing deal to supply Japanese utilities.

Why is this important to Japan? Because 70% of Japan's oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Because Japan currently imports all its enriched uranium from Europe. Because Japan has been burned by energy dependency in 1941, the 1970s, and right now.

One pellet of enriched uranium contains as much energy as 100 barrels of oil. You can stockpile it for years. The energy density alone makes nuclear the most defensible base load option for an import-dependent economy.

I sat down with Scott over sushi in Tokyo to talk about all of this. Enjoy.

(00:00) Intro
(01:17) The $2.4B EXIM Deal
(04:43) Why General Matter Had to Be Started
(11:51) The Uranium Supply Chain
(15:40) SpaceX and Nuclear: The Parallel
(19:54) Japan's Energy Security
(25:58) Safety Myths and Next-Gen Reactors
(31:10) Enrichment Economics
(37:18) The SpaceX Approach to Cheaper Enrichment
(46:43) Japan Supply Chain Partnership
(56:50) Why Peter Thiel Joined the Board
(01:02:10) Founders Fund on Japan
(01:09:02) Definite Optimism and the Anduril Playbook
(01:13:10) General Matter's Culture
(01:15:27) Five-Year Scaling Plan

[General Matter @generalmatter]

Enrichment is coming home, and now even sooner.

@ENERGY has selected General Matter for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad, a program that expands DOE authorization to the fuel supply chain and other nuclear technologies. https://t.co/p3snTtY6Am

[Scott Nolan @ScottNolan]

We enrich to solve the ultimate bottleneck: energy

[Anjney Midha @AnjneyMidha]

*New Lecture*

Stanford @CS153Systems '26, Session 8 (Full Video)

Energy Bottlenecks with @ScottNolan from @generalmatter

00:00 Energy Bottlenecks Intro
00:11 AI Factory Overview
02:55 Why Power Matters
03:56 From ChatGPT to Enterprise Demand
07:25 Meet Scott Nolan
09:03 Energy Is The Real Limit
11:16 Demand Growth Reality Check
13:17 Stranded Power Era
15:54 What Data Centers Need
16:59 Nuclear As Baseload Path
18:21 Fuel Cycle And Enrichment Gap
21:41 Bitcoin Mining As Rehearsal
25:03 Building Primitives Not Pivots
28:17 Nuclear Safety And Narrative
30:22 Calibrating the Moment
30:54 Pick Important Problems
32:14 General Matter Breakthrough
35:04 Building Team and Site
37:18 Government Support Reality
39:19 Jobs and AI Demand
42:37 Scaling Timelines and Space
46:16 Early SpaceX Lessons
50:25 Nuclear Perception and Europe
53:17 Supply Chain and Enrichment
56:56 Why US Lost Enrichment
59:25 Back to the Future Wrap

[Scott Nolan @ScottNolan]

.@patrick_oshag Thanks for having me on, and for the extreme degree of presence and thoughtfulness throughout the conversation.

To prevent the historical record from slowly drifting, I was “just” an intern in 2003 (team member 30-something) and went full time at SpaceX in 2004 (50-something).

I once believed a company was big when it hit 50 people, but that was obviously wrong. The first 100 is the first 1% of a 10k person company.

When a company has many chapters in its future, it’s always the early days. Scale invariance is a powerful thing.

[Patrick OShaughnessy @patrick_oshag]

.@ScottNolan started his career as employee 30 at SpaceX. He left to join Founders Fund after Peter Thiel recruited him personally in 2011, and spent the next 12 years backing companies like SpaceX, Anduril, Radiant, and Crusoe Energy.

The through line across all of it, and the worldview Thiel built Founders Fund around, was finding important problems that incumbents have no incentive to solve. Scott's version of that thesis was physical-world companies in a decade when venture capital had largely decided not to fund them.

Before starting @generalmatter, Scott met nearly every advanced reactor company in America. They all were constrained by the same problem - no one was enriching uranium domestically at scale. He spent 2023 looking to invest in a company solving it and found none.

The US once led the world in enrichment. But it let its enrichment plants calcify and shut down its last domestically owned facility in 2013. Today Russia supplies about 25% of the enriched uranium that fuels 20% of the country's electricity. Congress has already passed a ban on those imports that takes full effect in 2028.

So Scott started General Matter, the first private American uranium enrichment company, built on DOE land in Kentucky where the country's last enrichment plant once operated. In January, the DOE awarded it a $900 million contract.

Thiel sits on almost no boards, yet he joined General Matter's.

Enjoy this great conversation with Scott Nolan.

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:00 Finding Important Problems
6:18 Lessons from Peter Thiel
9:32 Spotting Underappreciated Companies
21:46 The Danger of Falling in Love with Ideas
25:12 The Nuclear Energy Bottleneck
30:44 Why America Needs to Vertically Integrate
37:55 AI, Data Centers, and the Energy Squeeze
45:41 Advanced Nuclear Reactors
49:27 The Bring Your Own Energy (BYOE) Concept
53:45 Navigating America's Nuclear Fuel Cliffs
1:15:32 The Trade-offs Between Investing and Operating
1:18:00 Kindest Thing

[Scott Nolan @ScottNolan]

Allied demand for American nuclear fuel accelerates everything we're building here in the US.

Thank you to our partners at @ExImBankUS and NEDC for supporting us as we expand abroad.

[General Matter @generalmatter]

https://t.co/glg363JVSS

[Oliver Groß @minenergybiz]

Unreal numbers 👀⚡️
"JPMorgan estimates that, had Germany not phased out nuclear power, the country would have generated 50% less electricity from fossil fuels and 84% less electricity from natural gas in 2024. Electricity prices in Germany would have been around 25% lower, and the country would have imported half as much electricity.."

[Scott Nolan @ScottNolan]

Great to see hyperscalers making commitments to BYOE at yesterday’s @WhiteHouse Ratepayer Protection Pledge.

By drafting off generational investment, we can align the interests of data centers and their communities to ensure the US leads in AI.

Our perspective on BYOE: https://t.co/ItbJucpNv0

[White House OSTP 47 @WHOSTP47]

Under @POTUS leadership, the biggest AI companies in the world are committing to the Ratepayer Protection Pledge.

Data centers are the foundation of the internet and next generation technologies, supporting the U.S. economy and national security. Although electricity demand is increasing, Americans won’t be footing the bill. President Trump is leveraging the data center boom to benefit American households, businesses, and the energy grid at large.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Electricity output is the single best proxy for industrial capacity

[General Matter @generalmatter]

BYOE, the net positive energy proposal:

[Scott Nolan @ScottNolan]

We can leverage investment in compute to meaningfully grow the grid for the first time in decades. Here's how:

[General Matter @generalmatter]

https://t.co/Ye99eXtRck

[Scott Nolan @ScottNolan]

Energy is the root of all economic activity, and fuel is the bottleneck. Thanks for digging in @mariogabriele.

For anyone who wants to help end the bottleneck, @generalmatter is hiring in LA, western KY and central WA. High-agency engineers, builders and operators wanted.

[Mario Gabriele 🦊 @mariogabriele]

America used to be #1 in the world for nuclear energy and controlled 86% of global uranium enrichment. Today? We've fallen to last place.

As we approach the January 2028 ban on Russian uranium, the United States is facing a massive fuel crisis. If we don't reshore this capability, the future of our grid may be at risk.

In this episode, @ScottNolan (Partner at @foundersfund & Co-founder of @generalmatter) reveals his plan to take back America's lead.

We discuss:
• How Scott is applying the SpaceX playbook of cost reduction to uranium
• The massive market opportunity in HALEU and next-gen fuel
• Scott's counterintuitive advice: avoid starting companies unless the mission is this important.

Timestamps
(00:00) Introduction to Scott Nolan
(02:24) General Matter’s mission to rebuild U.S. enrichment
(08:31) Scott’s background: From SpaceX and Founders Fund to General Matter
(17:50) How Scott’s focus evolved over 13 years at Founders Fund
(33:30) How U.S. uranium enrichment quietly came to an end
(38:34) The Russian uranium ban and the 2028 supply cliff
(50:56) What the U.S. needs to actually scale nuclear energy
(59:30) Why General Matter chose Paducah, Kentucky
(01:07:06) The $900 million Department of Energy award
(01:14:12) Final meditations

[Wall Street Mav @WallStreetMav]

If science class explained everything with Midwest emo music, we would have a lot more people paying attention.

Nuclear power explained.
It’s just a fancy way to heat water and make electricity.

🔊

[Scott Nolan @ScottNolan]

…and 18% of the grid is nuclear, 100% reliant on foreign fuel

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

US data centers will consume nearly 10% of the entire US power grid by 2030.

This is 4 TIMES the percentage seen in China.

We need more power. Immediately.

[Scott Nolan @ScottNolan]

Thank you for the interest and support. Come visit us in Paducah any time.

[Shawn Ryan @ShawnRyan762]

Congrats @ScottNolan.

[Pirate Wires @PirateWires]

NEW IN PIRATE WIRES: America is relearning something it forgot — you can’t make power without fuel.

This week, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $2.7b investment in American uranium enrichment, a capability we effectively abandoned in the 90s. Obama shut down America’s last remaining enrichment facility in 2013.

Three companies won $900m each. Two are legacy players. One is a startup: General Matter.

Founder @ScottNolan tells us General Matter’s facility in Kentucky, on the site of the exact same facility Obama shut down, will use the $900m to meet all domestic demand for high-assay low-enriched uranium (used by advanced nuclear reactors) years ahead of schedule.

Today, ~70% of our nuclear fuel currently comes from foreign countries, and Russia is one of our biggest suppliers. This is obviously a risk to our grid, and to our national security.

American reactors need American fuel. For the first time in decades, they’re about to get it. Full story from @HarrisSockel 👇

[Scott Nolan @ScottNolan]

General Matter’s mission is to restore American leadership in nuclear fuel. Today’s award will accelerate our timeline to satisfy all domestic HALEU demand years ahead of schedule.

Thank you @ENERGY for your support and partnership. American reactors need American fuel, and we will deliver it.

[General Matter @generalmatter]

Last year, General Matter launched to restore U.S. leadership in nuclear enrichment and power America’s ambitions. Today, the Department of Energy awarded us a $900M contract to build and operate HALEU enrichment capacity for the nation’s nuclear energy needs.

Under this decade-long, milestone-based contract, General Matter will build domestic HALEU enrichment capacity, fueling the next generation of American nuclear power and enabling American leadership in AI, manufacturing, and other critical industries.

Earlier this year, we announced a partnership with the Department of Energy to reindustrialize the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. This award accelerates that plan and will make Paducah, Kentucky the cornerstone of the U.S. enrichment once again.

Rebuilding U.S. domestic enrichment capacity will reduce our reliance on foreign providers, strengthen our nuclear industrial base, and lower energy costs for utilities and consumers.

American reactors need American uranium. In partnership with the Department of Energy, we will deliver it.