Fermi swaps a financier for a builder, and the clock starts on 222 MW

Fermi has installed Lee McIntire as chief executive, more than three months after its board removed co-founder Toby Neugebauer from the job, according to TechCrunch's August 12 report ^[1]. The swap puts a career engineering-and-construction executive in charge at the moment a 17 GW private power and computing campus in the Texas Panhandle stops being a financing story and becomes a schedule with penalties attached ^[2][3].

McIntire spent 15 years at Bechtel, led the engineering and construction firm CH2M Hill, and was CEO of Bill Gates-founded nuclear developer TerraPower from 2015 to 2018 ^[4]. He was already an independent Fermi director and joined the committee looking for Neugebauer's successor in April, so the board hired one of the people running its own search ^[5]. Marius Haas told TechCrunch: "The job now is to build on schedule, on budget, and safely." ^[6]

The predecessor's profile was the opposite. Neugebauer co-founded Quantum Energy Partners in 1998 and spent years investing in oil, gas and energy infrastructure before forming Fermi with former U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Griffin Perry and power executive Larry Kellerman ^[7]. Their thesis was to control land, generation and data-center facilities inside one development rather than wait in a utility interconnection queue ^[8]. That argument raises capital well. It does not sequence contractors.

What has to be built is not one thing. Project Matador combines data-center shells, gas generation, grid power, batteries, solar and, over a longer horizon, four proposed nuclear reactors ^[9]. Near-term delivery leans on natural gas and grid-supplied electricity while the nuclear portion works through licensing and development ^[10], which is where McIntire's contractor management and procurement background matters more than his reactor experience.

The deadline is already set. Under an August 10 agreement, AI cloud provider TensorWave agreed to lease a facility supported by 222 MW at Project Matador, designed for tens of thousands of AMD Instinct GPUs, with phased delivery starting in the second half of 2027 ^[11]. Fermi calculates roughly $6.5 billion of contracted revenue over the initial 15-year term, with expansion rights that could exceed 650 MW ^[12]. That first tranche is about 1.3 percent of the advertised 17 GW ^[1], and the headline revenue averages roughly $433 million a year across the term rather than landing now ^[2]. The lease carries conditions involving project guarantees and financing, and Fermi has to deliver the building and the power infrastructure before the tenant can move in ^[13][14].

The balance sheet is the reason those conditions are the story. Fermi was formed in January 2025 and reported no revenue through December 31, 2025 ^[15]. The same filing estimated Phase 0 and Phase 1 could require more than $3 billion in capital expenditures ^[16], roughly 46 percent of the entire 15-year TensorWave contract value spent before most of that revenue arrives ^[3].

There is also unfinished governance. The board removed Neugebauer in April and terminated his employment for cause later that month, citing alleged misrepresentations, unauthorized discussions and conduct violating company policies; he disputed that account and pushed to change the board ^[17]. In May a federal judge denied Fermi's request for an emergency injunction against that effort, finding Fermi had not shown a substantial likelihood of success ^[18]. Co-presidents Jacobo Ortiz Blanes and Anna Bofa held day-to-day management while Heidrick & Struggles ran the CEO search against an April specification calling for operational expertise and public-company experience ^[19][20].

Watch three markers: whether the TensorWave financing and guarantee conditions are satisfied and disclosed, whether Fermi names a contractor and a delivery structure for Phase 0 and Phase 1 against that $3 billion-plus estimate ^[16], and whether the second-half-2027 phased delivery date survives its first procurement cycle ^[11].