If energy author and speaker Robert Bryce is correct, the proposed 6,000-acre data center and power plant by Fermi in the Texas Panhandle has turned from “sizzle to fizzle.”
Writing for Substack.com this week, Bryce points out how Fermi Inc., the startup co-founded by former Texas governor and Energy Secretary Rick Perry went public in a transaction that allowed the company to raise nearly $746 million.
“A day later, one analyst told Reuters that Fermi’s IPO “speaks to the gold rush happening in AI infrastructure right now. It’s a cash geyser.” It certainly looked like a geyser. At the time of the IPO, Rick Perry’s shares in Fermi were worth $540 million, and his son, Griffin Perry, had a stake valued at $2.3 billion,” explained Bryce.
Fermi intended to use the funds to build more than 11 gigawatts of power generation capacity at the Amarillo site called Project Matador. The company founders claimed it would become a “go-to destination” for a large collection of data centers. The plan was to build gas-fired generators, small modular reactors and four AP1000 nuclear reactors. The company intended to name it the “President Donald J. Trump Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus.”
Since then, Fermi’s stock price plunged about 84%, peaking at about $37 but trading at more than $5 a share this week.
“On March 30, the company reported its 2025 financial results, and they were ugly. Fermi reported a full-year loss of $486.4 million, which included some $177.8 million in general and administrative expenses, $173.8 million in charitable expenses, $132.7 million in share-based compensation, and $111.6 million in losses related to financing,” continued Bryce in his latest writing.
He also said Fermi is facing lawsuits after its first prospective tenant had terminated a $150 million Advance in Aid of Construction agreement. The prospective tenant was never named. Within weeks, class-action law firms announced they were suing Fermi.
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