Seth Cohen, a 31-year-old lawyer with no nuclear experience working through Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, is leading efforts to gut nuclear safety regulations to accelerate AI infrastructure buildout. At a Department of Energy meeting last summer, Cohen dismissed radiation exposure concerns by joking that "70 people live" in Utah test areas, brushing off staff concerns about protecting babies and pregnant women from low-level radiation exposure. Trump has already fired Nuclear Regulatory Commission Commissioner Christopher Hanson—the first NRC commissioner ever terminated—after Hanson defended the agency's independence.
This represents Silicon Valley's most aggressive push yet to reshape critical infrastructure regulation for AI's energy demands. The NRC sets the global gold standard for nuclear safety, influencing regulations worldwide. Career nuclear experts are being forced out while thousands of pages of safety regulations get rewritten "at a sprint" to accommodate new reactor designs backed by venture capital. The administration's approach mirrors Big Tech's "move fast and break things" philosophy, except the stakes involve radiation exposure and nuclear safety protocols developed over decades of careful engineering.
The broader context reveals how AI's massive energy requirements are driving unprecedented regulatory capture. While nuclear power could theoretically provide clean baseload energy for data centers, the rush to bypass safety protocols suggests the tech industry views regulatory oversight as an obstacle rather than a safeguard. Cohen's dismissive attitude toward radiation exposure—recorded in official meeting transcripts—signals a fundamental shift from evidence-based safety standards to Silicon Valley-style risk tolerance in one of the most consequential regulatory domains.
For AI builders, this creates a troubling precedent where infrastructure safety gets subordinated to scaling demands. The long-term reliability of nuclear-powered AI infrastructure depends on rigorous safety protocols, not regulatory shortcuts driven by venture capital timelines.