Augustus Doricko on Rain Maker and weather modification as critical infrastructure for American agriculture
May 1, 2025 with Augustus Doricko
Key Points
- Rain Maker CEO Augustus Doricko argues water scarcity is an overlooked constraint on U.S. reindustrialization, citing TSMC's Arizona fab as a case study with no clear freshwater source.
- Weather modification legislation has been introduced in 33 states, but 18 bills have stalled or been amended; Montana funded a cloud seeding program after Rain Maker's pitch.
- Doricko is courting Gulf sovereign wealth as both funding and proof-of-concept, leveraging the Trump administration's ties to Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi around Vision 2030 ambitions.
Summary
Rain Maker is Augustus Doricko's weather modification company, built on the premise that cloud seeding can function as critical infrastructure for American agriculture and water supply — not a fringe technology, but a practical tool for expanding freshwater availability at scale.
Doricko reports that weather modification legislation has now been introduced in 33 states, though the political environment is complicated. Of those bills, 18 have been dropped, amended to carve out cloud seeding while still banning chemtrails, or otherwise diluted. Montana is a bright spot: Rain Maker showed up, made the case for cloud seeding, and the state funded a program. Federal legislators, Doricko says, have been more straightforward — willing to set aside the QAnon-adjacent noise and engage on cloud seeding as a water supply tool, with conversations turning to report language and potential program support.
Water and reindustrialization
Doricko frames water scarcity as an underappreciated constraint on the reindustrialization agenda dominating Hill and Valley 2025. Energy, critical minerals, and human capital get the headline attention, but water has historically been treated as a fixed limitation rather than a supply problem to be solved. He argues that changes as manufacturing scales back up. The TSMC fab in Arizona is his sharpest example: nobody has a clear answer for where the water comes from, and the only realistic sources — snowpack from Flagstaff-area mountains or the Colorado River — point back to precipitation augmentation through cloud seeding.
Middle East and capital
Doricko is also watching Gulf sovereign capital as a potential partner class. Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 ambitions around greening the desert and AI infrastructure, combined with the Trump administration's close ties to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, make the region both a funding source and a proof-of-concept for what large-scale environmental transformation can look like. He describes the Gulf states as making Rain Maker look in the mirror about what's possible at national scale.
His immediate schedule illustrates the pace of the business: he flies midnight from DC back to Los Angeles to interview scientists, then catches another overnight to Florida days later — the logistics of a company still grinding through state-by-state regulatory campaigns while simultaneously building toward federal recognition.