Is the Future of Nuclear Energy Really Oklo

…or is it all smoke and mirrors

Meta’s jumped on board now, at least on paper

Meta recently announced a partnership with Oklo for a 1.2 gigawatt nuclear power campus in Ohio.

Oklo Aurora powerhouse from Oklo’s press release

This is a huge deal for Oklo. If you follow nuclear energy companies, you’ll know that Oklo has never actually built a nuclear power plant before, so this appears to be a huge vote of confidence for the company. Also, I’m no nuclear guru, so I’ve referenced a few things from Google’s AI Mode to help me write this article.

The deal with Meta consists of pre-payments to finance Phase 1 of the project and to secure nuclear fuel, according to Oklo’s press release. Meta has actually already paid Oklo $25 million as a prepayment, but it’s unknown whether the deal with Oklo will consist of even more prepayments.

Oklo estimates initial power could be delivered as early as 2030 with campus completion targeted around 2034.

The cost of building the 1.2 gigawatt campus could be up to $6.6 billion, according to BloombergNEF’s lead nuclear analyst Chris Gadomski (see more information in this article from Yahoo Finance).

$6.6 billion is actually quite small relative to the full landscape of Meta’s capital expenditures. For the year ahead, Meta’s anticipating $115 — $135 billion in capital expenditures, which is almost double what they spent in 2025 ($72 billion).

It’s also speculated that this arrangement could bring Oklo $1.3 billion in revenue per year, according to Intellectia.

OKLO stock has been upgraded by many analysts, too

Bank of America analyst Dimple Gosai upgraded the stock to a buy with a price target of $127 as a result of this recently announced deal.

This article from Barron’s has some justification for this price target hike:

“In Gosai’s view, the Meta deal is “one of a few firm, binding partnerships today” for Oklo as well as the broader industry.”

The prepayments to Meta are considered to “change the risk profile of the deal,” where “the agreement (with Meta) meaningfully de-risks the power business,” according to Gosai.

As I write this, OKLO stock is currently sitting around $80/share, so this implies a potential upside of 59%.

Many other analysts see an upside to where the stock price is at right now, with many having issued price targets for the stock over the past few months, which you can find listed in this post from Reddit.

Of the 18 firms tracked by FactSet, not one of them is rating Oklo at a sell right now, according to the same article from Barron’s I referenced earlier in this article.

Not everyone sees this stock as a buy, though.

Zachs Investment Research downgraded the stock to a strong sell as of January 23rd, citing downward earnings revisions and disconnect between stock price and fundamentals.

Thanks to Google’s AI mode for the above, but for some reason it didn’t provide me with the link for this recent information. Go figure.

Personally, I don’t want to touch the stock right now.

For a company that hasn’t built a nuclear power plant yet, has only barely just broken ground on their first pilot project within the past few months, and was previously denied a permit to build and operate a reactor, let’s just say I’m really skeptical.

Hopefully Meta has some good exit conditions in their “firm, binding partnership” that can get them out of their deal in case of issues down the road.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission previously denied their reactor application

Simply reading about the conditions of Oklo’s previous application denial in 2022 is enough for me to think that this could just be all smoke and mirrors.

If I were to sum everything up in one sentence, it would be with this quote:

Oklo “is probably the worst applicant the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] has ever had,” according to a former senior agency official quoted here.

Oklo’s application to build and operate its Aurora microreactor at the Idaho National Lab was previously denied because it “continue[d] to contain significant information gaps in its description of Aurora’s potential accidents as well as its classification of safety systems and components,” even with all of the hand-holding from the NRC to help them through the process.

You can read the 9-page document from the Director of the NRC here.

Google’s AI Mode summarizes the major criticisms really nicely:

Oklo didn’t provide enough detailed technical information to explain how it arrived at the results of its potential accident analysis.

The application also lacked adequate information to support Oklo’s assertion that certain safety-related systems, structures, and components were not required to control reactivity, remove heat, and retain radioactive material.

The NRC staff repeatedly requested additional information through various audits and communications, but determined that Oklo’s responses and supplemental reports contained information that was too conceptual in nature and did not adequately describe its methodologies.

Other Fellow Internetors also struggle to find technical information too

Even other people on the internet struggle to find any technical information at all about Oklo’s reactors.

For example, check out this post on Reddit:

We need to talk about this: Is Oklo a fraud?

The top comment starts out by saying “the history of new reactor designs, both LWRs and non-LWRs, over the past ~25 years is littered with examples of over-promising and under-delivering.”

A few more catchy lines from this thread put it more bluntly, like:

wtf is going on?

It seems they have spent more time designing an A-frame chalet than a nuclear power plant.

Most shortable stock in the entire market

For now, I see Oklo as a great company to keep my eyes on.

The stock has been really volatile lately, so I see it as a great trading opportunity. Just this week, the stock rose 11% on the 28th only to fall 16% over the next two days.

I’m really interested to see who will be tooting Oklo’s horn, and when.

I’m sure additional companies will be following in Meta’s footsteps to secure contracts for nuclear power with Oklo, so it will be really interesting to see how Oklo’s stock price will be reacting to the news, especially considering the fact that they’re not even commercial yet.

Oklo’s not the only company involved in the nuclear power race though, so other companies might beat them to the punch.

Meta’s not entirely dependent on Oklo either, as its announced partnerships with Constellation Energy, Vistra, and TerraPower in addition to Oklo.

While other hyperscalers like Google and Amazon are also interested in nuclear power, they haven’t announced any deals with Oklo (yet). To date, Google’s deals have involved Kairos Power, Tennessee Valley Authority, and Elementl Power, and Amazon’s deals have involved X-energy, Energy Northwest, Talen Energy, and Dominion Energy.

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