The AI nuclear power outfit Fermi has finally filled the corner office. On August 11, 2026, the company appointed Lee McIntire as chief executive, ending a leadership vacuum that had stretched more than three months since co-founder Toby Neugebauer was pushed out of the top job.
McIntire is not exactly a stranger to the building. He served as an independent member of Fermi’s board and has a résumé that reads like a masterclass in delivering enormous, complicated infrastructure. He previously held chief executive positions at engineering giant CH2M Hill and at TerraPower, the nuclear power startup founded by Bill Gates. That combination — big-project delivery plus deep nuclear credentials — is precisely what Fermi says its next phase demands.
And that phase is a doozy. Fermi America, co-founded by former U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, is building an AI campus in Amarillo, Texas, dubbed Project Matador. The end goal: nuclear reactors powering the ravenous data centers that modern AI workloads chew through. It’s an ambitious marriage of atomic energy and machine learning, and it lives or dies on execution.
Fermi’s chairman, Marius Haas, framed McIntire’s hire as a shift from vision to delivery. “Fermi’s next chapter is a construction and power delivery story, and we believe Lee is the ideal executive to lead Fermi through that process,” Haas said. “The job now is to build on schedule, on budget, and safely. Lee has spent 40 years delivering exactly this kind of large, complex project.” Haas also leaned on McIntire’s insider knowledge and “reputation for integrity” that customers, employees, regulators, and neighbors can rely on.
The timing dovetailed with some genuinely good news. Just two days before the CEO announcement, Fermi signed TensorWave as its first binding customer lease for the Project Matador campus — a milestone that turns speculative capacity into a committed tenant. Investors noticed: the stock climbed nearly 23% in the days following that news.
It’s a sharp turn from where the company sat in April, when Neugebauer and CFO Miles Everson were shown the door. At the time, Fermi wrapped the executive shakeup — along with plans for a corporate headquarters in Dallas — under a “Fermi 2.0” banner. The rebrand felt aspirational then. With a locked-in customer and a battle-tested builder now at the helm, the reset looks a little more real.
None of this makes Amarillo a functioning nuclear-powered AI campus overnight. Reactors, data centers, regulators, and budgets don’t bend to press releases. But hiring someone who has spent four decades bringing sprawling projects across the finish line is a signal that Fermi is done pitching the dream and ready to pour the concrete.
