The blocking of Thiel’s participation in a nuclear company supported by Altman ends

(Bloomberg) — A manic rally for Oklo Inc., a Sam Altman-backed developer of advanced nuclear systems, has delivered a massive paper gain to its founders and early investors since going public earlier this year. Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm is one of those that will soon be able to make money.

Large venture capital investors who previously served on the company’s board can begin selling about 13.5 million shares as early as Tuesday when restrictions preventing early investors from selling are lifted, six months after the close of the company’s blank-check deal Oklo.

Potential sellers include Mithril Capital Management LLC, the company 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 the IPO, falling as low as $5.35 on September 9 before rising more than 425% in two months. The stock hit a high of $28.12 on Wednesday as investors flocked to companies linked to the nuclear industry before a four-day decline that wiped 17% off their value. As of 11:55 a.m. in New York, the company was worth about $2.5 billion.

The stock’s wild price means the two early investors’ shares are worth more than $130 million each – a doubling in value since the special purpose acquisition company merged in May. It also provided a paper windfall for Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, and serial dealmaker 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 see millions of shares put up 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.

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

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Oklo is still years away from having a functioning reactor, which it said would likely be operational before the end of the decade. Nonetheless, the company’s shares have benefited from excitement surrounding the introduction of artificial intelligence and other computers, sparking 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 a Donald Trump victory in the U.S. presidential election, Vikram Bagri, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., wrote last month. Nuclear companies took part in the so-called “Trump trade”, which has been repeatedly unraveled in recent weeks.

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