Fermi Co-Founder Toby Neugebauer Out as CEO, CFO Resigns Same Day; Restructuring Veteran Jeffrey Stein Joins Board
Fermi Inc., the Rick Perry-co-founded nuclear and gas data center company that IPO'd last October, replaced its CEO and CFO on April 19. Marius Haas steps in as Chairman, a search for a new CEO begins, and shares closed down 19.7% at $5.27 on twice the average volume. Texas Tech also signaled it is renegotiating certain milestones in the Project Matador lease.
Fermi Inc. (NASDAQ & LSE: FRMI), the private-grid and data center developer co-founded by former U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, disclosed in an 8-K filed April 20 that its co-founder and CEO Toby Neugebauer has departed as chief executive, and that CFO Miles Everson resigned the same day — both effective April 19, 2026. The company is branding the changes "Fermi 2.0" and has engaged Heidrick & Struggles to find a permanent CEO.
Shares closed at $5.27, down 19.7% from Friday's $6.56, on roughly 1.25 million shares — about twice the recent daily average. FRMI has fallen from $7.22 on March 20 to $5.27 today, a decline of 27% over the past month.
What the 8-K says
The 8-K, filed under Item 5.02, discloses three personnel changes:
| Change | Name | Effective | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| CEO departure | Toby Neugebauer (co-founder) | April 19, 2026 | Remains on the Board |
| CFO resignation | Miles Everson | April 19, 2026 | Resignation was "without Good Reason" per his September 30, 2025 employment agreement. Elected to Board via director designation rights held by the Melissa A. Neugebauer 2020 Trust |
| Director appointment | Jeffrey S. Stein | April 19, 2026 | Class II director, term to 2027 |
The company also announced, via the accompanying press release furnished as Exhibit 99.1, that Lead Independent Director Marius Haas — a former Dell Technologies president and founding partner of private-equity firm BayPine — has stepped into the role of Chairman of the Board. The Board said it is "in negotiations with a candidate to serve as Interim Chief Financial Officer" and expects an announcement this week.
The Office of the CEO
To fill the operational gap, Fermi's Board established a new "Office of the CEO" with two Co-Presidents reporting to Chairman Haas:
- Jacobo Ortiz Blanes, previously Fermi's Chief Operating Officer and founder of the Puerto Rico–based Las Brisas Property Management.
- Anna Bofa, previously a Board Advisor, early employee at Dropbox and Pinterest, and Global Head of Product Programs at Meta. She is also co-founder of Crate AI.
A formal CEO search committee composed of Haas and independent directors Lee McIntire and Cordel Robbin-Coker has engaged Heidrick & Struggles to lead the process.
The Jeffrey Stein signal
Fermi's new director Jeffrey S. Stein is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Breakpoint Advisory Partners. According to the 8-K's director-biography disclosure, his recent board service reads like a restructuring map:
| Company | Role | Tenure |
|---|---|---|
| Octave Specialty Group | Chairman (current) | 2015–present |
| Sunnova Energy International | Director | April 2025 – November 2025 |
| Vertex Energy | Director | August 2024 – January 2025 |
| Rite Aid Corporation | Director | July 2023 – September 2024 |
| Troika Media Group | Director | November 2022 – March 2024 |
| Aearo Technologies (3M subsidiary) | Director | June 2022 – May 2024 |
| GWG Holdings | Director | June 2022 – July 2023 |
| Intelsat Connect Finance | Director | March 2020 – February 2022 |
Rite Aid, Westmoreland Coal, GWG Holdings, NMC Health, Sunnova Energy, and Intelsat all went through Chapter 11 or equivalent restructurings during or shortly after Stein's director tenure. The 8-K notes the Board "has not approved any compensation for Mr. Stein in connection with his appointment."
Texas Tech signals lease renegotiation
Buried in the Fermi press release is a statement from Brandon Creighton, Chancellor of the Texas Tech University System (TTUS), which is Fermi's host academic partner for the 17 GW Project Matador campus in Amarillo:
"Building on that progress, we are actively engaged in good-faith discussions to extend certain milestones in the lease agreement as we advance Project Matador into its next phase."
TTUS and Fermi have not disclosed which milestones are being extended or what triggered the renegotiation.
Company context
Fermi (ticker FRMI, dual-listed on Nasdaq and the London Stock Exchange) describes itself as building "the world's largest, 17 GW next-generation private HyperGrid campus," combining what it calls "the nation's biggest combined-cycle natural gas project," a large new-build nuclear complex, utility grid power, solar, and battery storage, targeted at hyperscaler AI customers. The company's co-founders are Rick Perry, the former Texas Governor and U.S. Energy Secretary, and Toby Neugebauer, the former Co-Managing Partner of Quantum Energy Partners who is now the departing CEO.
The company is also relocating its corporate headquarters from Amarillo to Dallas, with Amarillo retained as a site-operations office.