By Kennedy Maize
When the Tennessee Valley Authority announced this month that it had reached a mammoth deal — financial and timing details unspecified — to acquire 6GW of purchased power from an wide array of NuScale small modular reactors to be owned by ENTRA1–it produced some head-scratching.
What the heck is ENTRA1? It’s not an easy question to answer, although online sleuthing provides some useful details. The name first surfaced in the fall of 2023, when NuScale announced a sketchy deal with an Ohio data center developer with ENTRA1 described as NuScale’s partner with exclusive rights to develop, manage, own and operate energy production plants powered by NuScale’s SMRs.
Then came the TVA announcement, a blockbuster if it comes to fruition, which is far from certain. It was time to try to find out just what ENTRA1 is all about.
The company’s website is a cyber Potemkin village, all façade with no reality behind it. The site has buttons bragging: “drawing on 45+ years of experience” “portfolio experience of ~6B$ in “energy and infrastructure projects,” and “delivering on a ~30GW SMR project pipeline.” Click on those boxed claims for further information and the result is literally nothing. They lead nowhere.
The company is secretive. Although it has main offices in London and Houston, neither street address nor phone number are available for its Texas operation. Its LinkedIn post is cryptic: “Sustainable Energy Solutions for the Global Energy Transition, Electric Power Generation, Houston, Texas, 2K followers, 11-50 employees.
After considerable searching, some facts have emerged. It turns out the company is led by a secretive American-Middle Eastern family with multiple businesses focused on energy development, close ties to Fluor Corp., NuScale’s largest shareholder; direct ties to the Trump administration; and no hands-on experience with nuclear power construction or operation, although Fluor has plenty on the construction side.
ENTRA1 was born in London in December 2023 as a “private limited company”, according to the UK government securities regulator. ENTRA1 has offices at 22 Chancery Lane in London. The key bit of information is the identity of the person listed as the director on the filing: then 44-year-old American Wadie Habboush. According to the UK filing, Habboush owns 75% of the company.
Wadie Joseph (WJ) Habboush is the son of Riadh W. (RW) Habboush, founder of the Habboush Group (HG), a private asset management firm. His son, a lawyer who practiced in the London, New York, and Washington offices of the white shoe law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, was HG CEO. According to his HG corporate biography, among other tasks, WJ led a joint venture with Fluor “focused on developing power, infrastructure and industrial assets in the EMEA region” [Europe, the Middle East, and Africa].
There’s an even more direct connection between Habboush and Fluor. According to Securities and Exchange Commission documents and opencorpdata.com, Fluor Daniel Holdings and Habboush created Fluor-Habboush International Limited in Hamilton, Bermuda in 2012. The Bermuda address appears to be just a legal convenience, not a functioning office, as 10 other companies share the same address. No phone number is listed.
Fluor owns 50% of the Bermuda company, which was active at least until 2022. Among the original officers were both WJ and RW Habboush and Habboush Group International Limited, located in the Cayman Islands and the United Arab Emirates.
The Habboush family has been involved in U.S. politics going back to the first Trump administration, although there is no record of political involvement prior to 2017. According to the public interest group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government (CREW), in 2017 RW Habboush gave $1 million to the Trump inauguration fund.
Trump confident Tom Barrack held a gala inauguration dinner where Trump made an appearance. Wadie Habboush attended the dinner, sitting next to Trump’s incoming chief of staff Reince Preibus. Documents from the dinner listed Habboush as a guest of “DJT.” He was living in the posh D.C. suburb of McLean, Va., at the time.
Three weeks later, Habboush and a Texas businessman with ties to Donald Trump Jr. met with National Security Council officials and White House advisor Steve Bannon. They reportedly pitched the idea of mending relations with Venezuelan left-wing dictator Nicolás Maduro and ending U.S. sanctions on the South American oil giant. Their pitch was unsuccessful, although recently the idea has reappeared.
Later in Palm Beach, Habboush introduced Trump to a Turkish businessman, Emrullah Turanlı, with allegations of corruption and close ties to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
According to the Baltimore Sun, the senior Habboush also donated $1 million to Trump’s second inauguration in January. His address was listed at Glen Burnie, Md.
None of the Habboush business ventures involved nuclear power, instead favoring oil and gas ventures. Among the principals in ENTRA1 is Texan Skip Alvarado, in his 70s with decades in oil and gas at Brown & Root. Also, although not publicly linked to ENTRA1, a mug shot accompanying ENTRA1’s Google link shows former Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry, Trump’s first secretary of energy, taken years ago and without an identification. Since that picture, his hair has turned gray, although it is still plentiful.
“The problem is the opaque nature of these companies. They intend to be involved in running nuclear power stations, an industry where transparency is a key part of safety.” — Seeking Alpha’s Stephen Tobin
In June 2024, Seeking Alpha financial analyst Stephen Tobin commented on NuScale’s stock and on ENTRA1. He looked (often askance) at the Habboush connection and ENTRA1, noting that ENTRA1 had not yet filed any reports with the UK securities regulator. He wrote, “The fact that Mr Habboush owns 75% of the UK Entra1 Energy suggests that Entra1 and Habboush are part of the same operating unit.”
Tobin added, “The problem is the opaque nature of these companies. They intend to be involved in running nuclear power stations, an industry where transparency is a key part of safety. They appear not to have any significant track record and it is hard to ascertain if they have sufficient funds. I have asked all parties concerned to shed light on this issue and they have declined to do so.”
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