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Trump Makes an Announcement on American Nuclear Innovation, Jul. 24, 2026

July 24, 2026 · The White House · 0:38:35

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump marked “a historic milestone for civilian nuclear energy” at the White House on July 24, 2026, joined by Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, and OSTP Director Michael Kratsios. Recalling the four executive orders he signed the prior year “to reignite a wave of progress in America’s nuclear power production,” he said he had directed Secretary Wright to establish a pilot program for advanced reactors and “see at least three cutting edge reactors started up safely by the 4th of July.”

“Most believed it was impossible,” he said, “but I am delighted to say that four companies have succeeded in meeting that deadline… These are the first new privately funded advanced reactors to turn on [in] the United States in over four decades.” He congratulated the four companies’ chief executives by name: Antares Nuclear, Valar Atomics, Deployable Energy, and Alo Atomics. Approvals that once took “six years or more,” he said, were completed through “a historic partnership between these innovative companies and our administration.”

Why it matters

This announcement is the payoff event of the administration’s 2025 nuclear executive orders — a dated, named, checkable milestone (four advanced reactors started by July 4, 2026) in the energy-dominance program, owned by the Energy Department with Interior and OSTP at the table.

Scoreboard watch

This is a candidate item for the weekly scoreboard: the advanced-reactor pilot milestone. What the scoreboard will follow is the four reactors’ testing progress and the Energy Department’s documentation of the startups, and any licensing path that follows for commercial deployment.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Makes an Announcement on American Nuclear Innovation,” July 24, 2026 (official upload, embedded above). All figures and characterizations as stated by the President at the announcement.