Lockup on Thiel’s assets in Altman-backed nuclear company is ended

(Bloomberg) — A manic rally for Oklo Inc., a developer of advanced nuclear systems backed by Sam Altman, has delivered a massive paper windfall to its founders and early investors since going public earlier this year. Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm is among those that may soon start cashing in.

Big venture capital investors who previously sat on the company’s board could begin divesting about 13.5 million shares as soon as Tuesday when restrictions preventing early backers from selling are lifted, six months after Oklo’s blank check deal closed.

Potential sellers include Mithril Capital Management LLC, the firm co-founded by Thiel and Ajay Royan, and DCVC. Each owns more than 6.5 million shares, regulatory filings show.

Oklo shares have been volatile since going public, falling as low as $5.35 on Sept. 9 before surging more than 425% within two months. The stock hit a high of $28.12 on Wednesday as investors flocked to companies linked to the nuclear power industry, before a four-day slide saw 17% off its value. From At 11:55 a.m. in New York, the company was worth about $2.5 billion.

The stock’s wild ride means the pair of early investors’ stakes are each worth more than $130 million — a doubling in value from the May merger with special buyout firms. It has also brought paper windfalls to Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, and serial trader Michael Klein, who co-sponsored the SPAC that took Oklo public, as well as executives Jacob DeWitte and Caroline Cochran. The latter group is currently unable to sell shares until May, although there are caveats that could open up millions of shares for sale as early as next week if the stock continues to perform well.

A representative for Mithril did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Representatives for Oklo and DCVC declined to comment.

Shares in the company, along with other U.S. power stocks, were under pressure Monday after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission late Friday voted 2-1 against a proposal that would have increased the amount of electricity supplied to an Amazon. com Inc. data facility adjacent to Talen Energy Corp.’s Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Oklo is years away from having a functional operating reactor, something it had said would likely be operational by the end of the decade. Nevertheless, its shares have benefited from excitement around the adoption of artificial intelligence and other computing that is driving a boom in power-hungry data centers and helping to boost demand for electricity for the first time in decades.

Oklo is among the companies that would benefit from Donald Trump winning the US presidential election, Citigroup Inc. analyst Vikram Bagri wrote last month. Nuclear names had participated in the so-called “Trump Trade,” which has been wound up and wound down in recent weeks.

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