Rick Perry Falls Short in a Fermi Board Vote. The Amarillo Data Center Company Blames Its Ousted Co-Founder
Former Gov. Rick Perry did not win reelection to the board of Fermi, the company behind Project Matador near Amarillo. Fermi says he stays on the board for now and blames shareholders tied to Toby Neugebauer.
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry did not win reelection Friday to the board of Fermi, the power and data center company he co-founded which aims to build the largest data center and power generation campus in the U.S. outside Amarillo.
The vote came at Fermi's annual shareholder meeting, according to a transcript obtained by The Texas Tribune. The company quickly pushed back on any suggestion that Perry is gone. It says he remains a director until a successor is elected and is still eligible for reelection.
Both things are true at once. Perry failed to win a new term, but Fermi says he has not been removed from his current seat, the Lubbock Chronicle reported.
What happened at the meeting
Shareholders voted on Perry and director Jeffrey S. Stein together. The board backed a proposal to extend both men's terms to the 2029 annual meeting, and that proposal failed, the Tribune reported.
In a statement, Fermi said Perry and Stein received a majority of the votes cast. But the company's bylaws require directors to win a majority of all shares, not just a majority of those voting.
"The proposal failed to achieve the required approval threshold following what the company believes was a breach of contractual voting obligations by the Neugebauer shareholders," the statement said.
The transcript did not include vote totals. Fermi's inspector of election is to include the counts in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is due within four business days.
A feud between co-founders
Toby Neugebauer, Fermi's former CEO and the man who first brought Perry into the venture, is at the center of the fight. A company spokesperson said Neugebauer violated a founders' agreement that required him to support Perry's reelection, and voted against him anyway. The spokesperson declined to say whether Fermi will take legal action.
"Fermi remains focused on advancing Project Matador, delivering critical American energy infrastructure, and creating long-term value for its shareholders," the company said. "We will not allow one disgruntled shareholder to distract from that mission to the detriment of the company."
Neugebauer, who was on the shareholder call, told the Tribune earlier Friday that he did not campaign to have Perry removed. He did not immediately respond to the company's claim that he broke a contract. The Chronicle noted that Fermi's allegation has not been independently established.
Fermi removed Neugebauer as CEO for cause in April, citing public outbursts that leadership said hurt its ability to sign tenants. Neugebauer has argued that leadership, including Perry, should have considered selling the company. Earlier this year he backed off a push for a special shareholder meeting to elect a new board majority that would pursue a sale.
What Project Matador is
Fermi leases about 5,000 acres from the Texas Tech University System near Amarillo. It has promised to bring its own power, a private "HyperGrid" built from natural gas, nuclear, solar and batteries, as a way to answer worries that data centers will drain the state grid. Its pending application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a large light-water reactor is the first such application since the late 2000s, the Tribune reported.
The company drew heavy early attention and went public within six months, but its stock has fallen more than 90% from its peak. A reported tentative deal with Amazon fell through late last year. In August, Fermi announced its first tenant, the AI cloud computing startup TensorWave.
Perry, who served as energy secretary in President Donald Trump's first term, holds about 16 million shares, less than 5% of the company. The Tribune put their value at roughly $41 million, down from about half a billion dollars at the peak last fall. His son, Griffin, owns about 60 million shares through Caddis Holdings, just under 10% of the company. The Tribune could not reach Perry for comment.
Why it matters to Texas
Project Matador sits on land owned by a state university system and promises a private power grid and a huge computing campus in the Panhandle. Who runs the company, and whether its founders can work together, matters to West Texas as much as to Wall Street.
The next marker is the SEC filing with the actual vote counts. Until then, Texans have the company's word and an unresolved quarrel between two founders who once shook hands on a very big idea. Contracts and promises should be kept, and the shareholders deserve a clear accounting of who voted how.
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