X-Energy’s Shares Jump in IPO, Delivering Wins to Amazon and Ken Griffin
The nuclear energy company scrapped a public offering less than three years ago, before the artificial-intelligence boom took hold
- X-Energy’s shares closed up 27% in their stock-market debut, giving the company a market valuation of around $11.5 billion. The company has benefited as artificial-intelligence drives demand for new sources of electricity.
- Amazon became an investor and client in 2024, committing over five gigawatts of new nuclear energy from X-Energy.
- Ken Griffin, founder of Citadel, was set to gain about $300 million from a $100 million personal investment made 1.5 years ago.
Nuclear-energy company X-Energy XE 26.96%increase; green up pointing triangle scrapped a public offering less than three years ago after investors showed little interest.
On Friday, X-Energy’s shares closed up 27% in their stock-market debut, giving the company a market valuation of around $11.5 billion. X-Energy has benefited as artificial intelligence drives demand for new sources of electricity.
Its high-profile backers include Amazon.com AMZN 3.49%increase; green up pointing triangle and Ken Griffin, the founder of hedge-fund firm Citadel.
Based on the closing price of the stock, Griffin scored paper gains of more than $300 million from a $100 million personal investment he made just a year-and-a-half ago, according to people familiar with the matter. It came after Griffin gave a speech in Singapore in 2023 about the growing need for nuclear power to satisfy the electricity needs of emerging data centers. David Kaplan, Ares Management’s co-founder, heard about the talk. Soon, Griffin was contacted by bankers representing X-Energy searching for capital after the failed offering.
Ares is another huge winner, other people familiar with the matter said. The investment firm was set to make more than four times the over-$160 million it invested in the company, the people said, noting that Kaplan and a partner, Allyson Satin, led the investment.
Founded in 2009 by aerospace veteran Kamal “Kam” Ghaffarian, X-Energy spent years developing industrial-size modular nuclear reactors to produce energy for factories and other industrial facilities. By 2022, the Maryland-based company had a deal to sell reactors to the chemical-company Dow’s facility in Seadrift, Texas, but investors worried that its potential market was limited.
In December of that year, Ares invested $30 million in the company, along with two hedge funds, aiming to take the company public. But a merger with Ares Acquisition, a blank check company backed by the Los Angeles firm, was scuttled in October 2023 as investors cooled on special-purpose acquisition companies and became cautious on new issues. After the SPAC fell through, Ares added to investment by providing new financing.
X-Energy’s fortunes improved as companies began searching for new sources of energy amid the growth of artificial intelligence. In 2024, Amazon, which has backed nuclear-power projects across the U.S. and is eager to get energy from small, modular reactors, became both an investor and a client. Amazon has said it received a commitment of more than five gigawatts of new nuclear energy from X-Energy.
Griffin made his investment in X-Energy in the fall of 2024. Steve Cohen’s Point72, Jane Street, Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest and the University of Michigan also made investments, X-Energy has said. They all stand to benefit from Friday’s IPO. Amazon owns close to 20% of X-Energy.
The investors can’t lock in profits until they sell their shares. And it isn’t clear how the stock will fare on the public market. X-Energy is still years away from completing a reactor and obtaining regulatory licensing. It has competitors racing to provide nuclear power, including TerraPower, backed by Bill Gates, Oklo and NuScale Power.
Hyperscalers including Amazon, Microsoft and Meta have a growing demand for electricity to power massive data centers and manage AI processing, sparking enthusiasm for nuclear power.