OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman stepped down from his roll as chairman of nuclear-power startup Oklo, the company announced late on Tuesday. Altman had served also Oklo chairman since 2015. Oklo stock advanced early Wednesday.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based nuclear startup announced Tuesday that Chief Executive Jacob DeWitte will replace Altman as chairman of the board.
"Sam has been instrumental in shaping Oklo's trajectory since the inception of Oklo," DeWitte said in the press release.
Oklo May Split Chairman-CEO Role
Altman, in the press release Tuesday, said that nuclear energy is essential to meet the "growing energy demands of artificial intelligence and other critical industries" and that Oklo's current leadership team is "well suited to meet these needs."
"As Oklo explores strategic partnerships to deploy clean energy at scale, particularly to enable the deployment of AI, I believe now is the right time for me to step down. Historically, energy availability and cost, along with computational limitations, have been fundamental constraints on technological progress. A future where these are no longer limiting factors will be radically different, and I look forward to following Oklo's leadership in driving this transformation," Altman said.
An analyst note from Citi on Wednesday said conversation with Oklo indicate "that management is in discussions with several potential candidates to add to the board and may consider separating the CEO and chairman role again in the future," according to reporting from The Fly.
In addition, H.C. Wainwright initiated coverage on Oklo stock Wednesday, with a buy rating and a price target at 55 — 155% above where shares closed on Tuesday.
Oklo stock soared 8.5% to 23.36 during Wednesday's stock market action. The stock advanced more than 5% to 21.53 on Tuesday. Heading into Wednesday stock market trade, Oklo was flat on the year but has declined 63% since it hit an all-time high of 59.14 on Feb. 7. The stock jumped 101% in 2024. But the gain masked some wild gyrations.
Altman, Oklo And Nuclear Stocks
Oklo has been busy cutting deals and signing letters of intent to partner with data centers to provide nuclear energy in the coming years. The deals revolve around a new breed of nuclear power plants called small modular reactors, or SMRs. No operating SMRs currently exist, but a number of companies are developing the technology.
SMRs aim to provide power at the user site level, drastically reducing the time and cost of permitting, constructing and operating full-scale nuclear facilities.
However, Oklo profits are still a distant target. The company forecasts a full-year operating loss of $40 million to $50 million in 2025. Oklo doesn't expect its first Aurora SMR powerhouse to be operational until 2027.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump announced earlier this year that Altman's OpenAI, along with SoftBank and Oracle, are planning a joint venture called Stargate. The plan is to build data centers and other AI infrastructure in the U.S., with investments of up to $500 billion. Nuclear stocks responded positively to the news.
However, when China-based DeepSeek released in January its powerful artificial intelligence program that it claimed cost just $5.6 million to build, it marked a possible paradigm shift. The DeepSeek AI model suggested that massive levels of investment by technology industry giants in energy and AI infrastructure might not be necessary.
Nuke Stocks Cool After Hot 2024
S&P 500 nuclear stocks Constellation Energy and Vistra ran toward the top of the index in 2024 as investors flocked to artificial intelligence-adjacent plays. But both stock dropped in 2025.
Meanwhile, other SMR-focused companies Nano Nuclear Energy galloped 380% higher in 2024 since going public on the Nasdaq on May 8. And NuScale Power surged 445% in 2024, propelled higher by more than 50% gains in October and November.
SMR stock is down 16% in 2025 and NNE has dropped 23% so far this year in stock market trade.
Oklo stock has a 21-day average true range of 11.26%. The ATR metric is available on IBD's MarketSurge charting tool. It gauges the characteristic breadth of a stock's behavior. Stocks that tend to make large jumps or dives in daily action, the kind that can trigger sell rules and shake investors out of a stock, have a high ATR. Stocks that tend to make more incremental moves have lower ATRs.
In the current stock market, IBD suggests stocks with ATRs of 3% or below.
Oklo stock has a 58 Composite Rating out of a best-possible 99. Shares also have a 95 Relative Strength Rating and a 23 EPS Rating.
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