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“We’re allowing these types of projects to continue to be viewed as viable when they most certainly are not,” said Shah, who ran the department’s Loan Programs Office during the Biden administration.
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While executing Fermi’s plan would be hard, political tailwinds seemed favorable.
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Perry and his son Griffin signed on as Fermi’s co-founders, and the company incorporated in early 2025 as Trump returned to office, determined that the US should “dominate” the fast-growing AI industry. On the company’s first earnings call in November, Neugebauer bragged that Trump’s current energy secretary, Chris Wright, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had intervened in trade negotiations with Germany to help Fermi secure gas turbines from Siemens Energy AG.
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For Fermi’s plan to work, the company needed to land at least one anchor tenant, which would then help unlock project financing. In November, the company reached a $150 million agreement with a potential tenant. But the following month, Fermi reported in a filing that the deal had fallen through, triggering a 46% sell-off in the company’s stock.
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Fermi’s filing didn’t identify the client that balked. But Neugebauer told Business Insider the tenant in question was Amazon.com Inc., and people familiar with the discussions confirmed Amazon’s identity to Bloomberg this week. Talks between the companies, the people said, broke down after Amazon sought to cut the contract’s duration from 20 years to 15 years, and after the tech giant estimated that Matador would reliably supply less electricity than Fermi proposed. Amazon declined to comment on the reported talks and said the company has had no recent business engagements with Fermi.
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In February, the Amarillo Globe-News reported construction had paused at Fermi’s site. By April, site improvements were still mostly unbuilt, according to a widely-circulated short seller report. “Really there was just lots of dirt. It was a piece of dirt with a dream,” an investor who visited the site in February told the short sellers, Fuzzy Panda Research.
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Neugebauer kept pitching. Clad in his usual tweed jacket, he worked the rooms at the Semafor World Economy conference in Washington DC last month, trailed by another Fermi employee carrying a stack of give-away cowboy hats. But on April 17, the board removed him as CEO.
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The split leaves Fermi in an awkward position. Neugebauer remains the company’s largest shareholder, with a stake worth about $1.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His sons hold restricted stock units with a combined grant date value of $68.5 million, according to a recent company filing.
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Perry, meanwhile, retains his board seat and his stock holdings, worth about $80 million. Perry’s son Griffin has shares worth just over $300 million and sold 15% of his stake for $56 million after a lock-up period ended in March. Griffin Perry did not respond to requests for comment.
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Fermi’s ground lease agreement with Texas Tech, reviewed by Bloomberg News, gave the university the right to terminate the lease if the company couldn’t secure a tenant by the end of last year. But after Neugebauer’s removal, the school system signaled its continued support for Fermi.
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“Project Matador has the potential to deliver generational impact—not just for TTUS, but for national security, American energy independence, and the future of advanced research and industry in West Texas,” said Chancellor Brandon Creighton in a Fermi press release announcing the executive changes.
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