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.

In this episode, we unpack how decades of policy decay left the U.S. with under 0.1% of global enrichment capacity, and why AI demand and geopolitical tensions are reigniting the race for clean, scalable energy.

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, and 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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Made in America: Peter Thiel’s $50M Bet on American Nuclear Fuel, General Matter

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