Oklo and NuScale Lost More Than 80% as Contracts Failed to Match the Hype

Oklo and NuScale Power lost more than 80% over the year after investors priced both companies as early winners of a nuclear-power revival. The decline is a useful correction to the original thesis: regulatory progress and rising electricity demand matter, but they do not eliminate project execution, financing or dilution risk.

NuScale still owns the only NRC-certified small modular reactor design, yet its latest quarterly revenue was only $75,000 after Romanian engineering work ended. Its weighted diluted share count rose to 364.5 million from 133.4 million, meaning shareholders absorbed substantial dilution while a definitive TVA agreement remained unsigned.

Oklo also has no commercial Aurora unit selling power. It has about $3 billion in cash and marketable securities, and its Groves isotope reactor reached first criticality in less than a year. Those are tangible milestones. Still, roughly $1.9 billion of its cash came from at-the-market equity sales, and 2026 capital-spending guidance increased to $400 million to $500 million.

The underlying demand case did not disappear. Data centers continue to lift U.S. electricity demand, and federal policy supports more nuclear capacity. But the market had treated faster licensing as if it guaranteed near-term revenue. The past year showed that permits, customers, financing, construction and grid delivery remain separate hurdles.

For NuScale, a binding ENTRA1-TVA power agreement or final progress in Romania would improve the case. For Oklo, the next evidence is successful safety review, startup execution and early revenue from planned projects. Until those milestones arrive, analyst price targets describe possible outcomes rather than earned value.

The lesson is not that advanced nuclear cannot work. It is that development-stage energy companies should be valued against contracted cash flows and dilution, not only against the size of the future power market.