The podcast OpenAI just acquired fell for TownLift’s nuclear cooling ski prank

TBPN hosts Jordi Hays and John Coogan react to TownLift's nuclear ski story during the show's April 1 Timeline Reactions segment. Photo: TBPN

If you fell for TownLift's nuclear cooling April Fools prank, you were not alone

PARK CITY, Utah — When TownLift published its April 1 report on the Wasatch Atmospheric Retention and Mitigation Initiative (WARMI), a $1.2 billion plan to install three micro nuclear reactors above Park City and shoot proton beams over ski runs to keep snow cold ahead of the 2034 Winter Games, the response was immediate.

Readers flooded our Instagram comments and most caught on eventually. “I forgot what day it was and this got me, up until the acronym WARMI,” one reader wrote. Another proclaimed “Night skiing is going to be LIT !!!” and Then TBPN picked it up…

On April 1, TBPN hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays pulled up TownLift’s nuclear ski story during their Timeline Reactions segment, spending several minutes on air working through whether Utah installing proton beam reactors above Park City was the kind of thing that could actually happen.

TBPN is my favorite tech show. We want them to keep that going and for them to do what they do so well.” — Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO

The story landed in the middle of what has become one of the show’s recurring themes: the accelerating intersection of nuclear energy, AI infrastructure, and ambitious American reindustrialization. In that context, a $1.2 billion nuclear atmospheric cooling system in the Wasatch Range was, apparently, not an immediately unrealistic initiative.

Utah goes nuclear to keep ski runs cold for the 2034 Winter Games

What is TBPN

For those outside Silicon Valley, TBPN, the Technology Business Programming Network, is a daily live talk show hosted by former founders John Coogan and Jordi Hays that airs three hours a day on YouTube and X. The New York Times recently called it “Silicon Valley’s newest obsession.” The Wall Street Journal reported the show generated around $5 million in advertising revenue in its first year and was on track to exceed $30 million in 2026. Its guest list reads less like a podcast booking sheet and more like a Fortune 500 attendance log: Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, Marc Benioff, Mark Cuban, and Sam Altman have all appeared. Altman has come back multiple times.

The timing was notable. TBPN’s April 1 broadcast came one day after OpenAI announced it had acquired the show in a deal that made headlines across the business press. Altman wrote on X that TBPN is “my favorite tech show,” adding that he expects the hosts to continue holding OpenAI accountable and that he will “do my part to help enable that with occasional stupid decisions.” OpenAI’s head of AGI deployment Fidji Simo said the show will maintain full editorial independence and continue choosing its own guests and setting its own agenda.

For the record: WARMI is not real. No nuclear reactors are planned for Jupiter Peak or either Cottonwood Canyon. The proton beam pipeline system does not exist, negatively charged protons are not a recognized class of particle, and the Utah Defense and Infrastructure Land Authority were invented for satirical purposes.

TBPN is my favorite tech show.

We want them to keep that going and for them to do what they do so well.

I don’t expect them to go any easier on us, am sure I’ll do my part to help enable that with occasional stupid decisions.

— Sam Altman (@sama) April 2, 2026