Peter Thiel’s $50M Bet on American Nuclear Fuel, General Matter

Scott Nolan, Founder & CEO of General Matter and Partner at Founders Fund, joins Sourcery to break down America’s urgent need to rebuild its nuclear fuel supply chain. With $50 million in funding led by Founders Fund, General Matter is developing U.S.-based production of HALEU (high-assay low-enriched uranium), the nuclear fuel critical for powering next-generation reactors.

As part of the recent investment, Peter Thiel, Founders Fund Partner & billionaire investor, is joining the board–a notable move for Thiel, who stepped down from Facebook’s board in 2022 and rarely takes on new board roles beyond his long-standing position at Palantir.

Nolan shares how General Matter is applying a “SpaceX x Palantir” playbook to reindustrialize the U.S., from assembling a cross-functional engineering team to securing government contracts and navigating executive orders. We dive into the HALEU bottleneck, AGI power demand, reactor deployment timelines, and the energy arms race with China—and why enrichment is the unlock for nuclear to become the cheapest, safest, & most scalable baseload energy source.

This conversation is part of Sourcery’s “Made in America” Mini-Series recorded at the Reindustrialize 2025 Summit.

Highlights

• America’s Enrichment Deficit: The U.S. currently supplies less than 0.1% of global nuclear fuel enrichment, with 25% of its supply still coming from Russia.

• General Matter’s Mission: Founded in 2023 to make enrichment affordable and scalable, enabling nuclear to become the lowest-cost baseload power.

• SpaceX/Anduril-style Playbook: Blending industry veterans with startup talent to accelerate execution: “1/3 incumbents, 2/3 Silicon Valley engineers”

• AI Energy Demands: By 2030, AI is projected to consume the equivalent of today’s entire U.S. power grid, making energy production the bottleneck.

• Executive Orders & Industrial Strategy: Recent U.S. government actions aim to re-regulate nuclear, fast-track licensing, and quadruple nuclear output by 2050—backed by DOE, DOD, and NRC.

Connect with us:

1. Scott Nolan: https://x.com/ScottNolan

2. Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea

3. Sourcery: https://x.com/sourceryvc

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(00:00) U.S. Nuclear Resurgence

(00:56) Why General Matter Was Founded

(02:49) Making Nuclear The Cheapest Baseload Energy

(04:00) Enrichment And Fuel Process Breakdown

(05:16) Decline Of U.S. Enrichment Capacity

(07:26) Building General Matter & SpaceX/Palantir Playbook

(09:55) Skunkworks Team: Nuclear Experts + Generalist Engineers

(11:11) Breakdown Of The Four Executive Orders

(16:35) Geopolitics, GDP, & The China Energy Gap

(21:14) End Of Stranded Assets & AI’s Power Bottleneck

(24:40) AGI & Software’s Role In Nuclear Deployment

(31:13) General Matter’s 12–18 Month Milestones