Fermi America Names Lee McIntire CEO as Project Matador Advances

Fermi America has appointed longtime engineering executive Lee McIntire as CEO, filling its top leadership role more than three months after the company removed co-founder Toby Neugebauer.

McIntire, who has served as an independent Fermi director since September 2025, took over as chief executive effective Aug. 11. His appointment comes as the company moves deeper into construction and power delivery at Project Matador, its planned AI data centre and energy campus near Amarillo, Texas.

Fermi turns to an infrastructure veteran.

McIntire brings more than four decades of experience in engineering, construction and energy. He previously served as chairman, CEO and president of CH2M Hill and was CEO of TerraPower, the advanced nuclear company founded by Bill Gates. Earlier in his career, he spent 15 years at Bechtel in senior leadership roles.

Fermi Chairman Marius Haas said McIntire’s experience delivering large, complex infrastructure projects made him suited to the company’s next stage, which is focused on keeping Project Matador on schedule, within budget and operating safely.

TensorWave becomes Project Matador’s first binding customer

The leadership change follows Fermi’s announcement that AI cloud company TensorWave signed the first binding customer lease for Project Matador. The initial agreement covers 222 megawatts of facility power and is expected to generate about $6.5 billion in contracted revenue over a 15-year term, according to Fermi.

Project Matador is designed to combine multiple power sources, including natural gas, nuclear energy, utility power, solar generation and battery storage. Fermi ultimately plans to build a 17-gigawatt private power grid to support large-scale AI computing infrastructure.

Neugebauer was removed as CEO in April as Fermi began what it called its “Fermi 2.0” strategy. McIntire’s appointment completes one of the major leadership objectives outlined during that transition while the company concentrates on securing customers and delivering power capacity at the Texas campus.