A newly created energy company with deep ties to Trump donors is reportedly in the running for a $25 billion nuclear contract.
The firm, Entra1 Energy, has yet to bring a single nuclear project to completion, employs fewer than five people, and appears to operate from a WeWork co-working space in Houston, Texas, according to Politico.
Yet it was shortlisted last October in partnership with NuScale—a publicly traded nuclear company with a market value exceeding $4 billion—to build new energy infrastructure using a slice of the $550 billion Japan pledged to the Trump administration to avoid the president’s tariffs.
Wall Street analyst Joe Osha of Guggenheim Securities was blunt about the company’s stature in comments to Politico. Pushing back on NuScale’s characterization of Entra1 as a “global energy company,” Osha said, “In reality, it really just looks like it’s a couple of guys.”
One of “those guys,” Politico reported, is Entra1 CEO Wadie Habboush, who traveled to Tokyo in October to pose for photos with Trump while brandishing a memorandum of understanding making his company eligible for billions of dollars in “large scale baseload power infrastructure” funding.
Habboush founded Entra1 Capital, on Dec. 23, 2021, after working at The Habboush Group, his family’s global investment firm, since 2007. His father, R.W. Habboush, who ran that firm, donated more than $2 million to Trump and Republican causes since 2017, per Politico.
The Trump connections run deeper still. One of Entra1’s outside advisers, Tommy Hicks Jr., who led the Republican National Committee as its co-chair from 2019 to 2023, is said to be a close friend of Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son. He describes himself on LinkedIn as an Entra1 advisory board member.
The New York Times reported in 2017 that Hicks and Trump Jr. had become hunting buddies. Trump also appointed Hicks to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board in February 2025.
Entra1 told Politico that Hicks has known Habboush “for decades” and that he “is involved in the investment strategy of the company, and has not played a role in securing any deals for the company.”
Despite its thin profile, Entra1 has already secured a lucrative foothold. In September, the Tennessee Valley Authority entered into a non-binding agreement with Entra1 and NuScale to produce up to 6 gigawatts of electricity.
That deal alone triggered a $495 million payment to Entra1 from NuScale under the terms of a partnership milestones agreement the two companies struck the previous month—roughly five times what the company held in total assets as of late 2024, according to a UK regulatory filing.
The pending Japanese award could even be larger. Tokyo has indicated that the funded projects could include nuclear power generation for artificial intelligence.
Citi investment analyst Vikram Bagri said the lack of a track record should give pause.
“Nuclear projects are obviously large, multibillion-dollar, multiyear projects, extremely hard to execute,” he told Politico. “Generally, we see what projects they’ve worked on, which is missing, and that’s the genesis of the questions.”
A White House official told Politico no funds have been officially allocated, calling the Tokyo MOU a “first step of interest,” and noted that any project must clear a joint U.S.-Japan consultation committee before receiving final approval from Trump.
The Daily Beast has contacted Entra1 Energy, NuScale Power, and the White House for comment.
