Fermi's Nuclear AI Dream Stumbles as CEO and CFO Walk Out

Fermi Inc., the high-profile startup promising nuclear power for AI data centers, lost both its co-founder CEO Toby Neugebauer and CFO Miles Everson on Friday. The double departure triggered an immediate 22–31% share drop across after-hours and Monday trading, wiping hundreds of millions in market cap. Neugebauer remains on the board but no longer chairs it; lead independent director Marius Haas now holds the gavel. The company has handed day-to-day control to an “Interim Office of the CEO” pairing COO Jacobo Ortiz and board observer Anna Bofa while it searches for permanent replacements .

Fermi’s marquee project, a planned AI mega-campus in the Texas Panhandle designed to pair small modular reactors with hyperscale compute loads, is suddenly leaderless at a critical moment. Local press in Amarillo reports “site advancement” continues, yet no updated timeline or financing details have been released since the resignations. The facility was pitched as a flagship for nuclear-powered AI training clusters; losing both the chief executive and finance chief raises fresh questions about funding, permitting and customer commitments .

Trading volume exploded to more than eight times the monthly average as retail and institutional investors dumped FRMI shares. Posts on Stocktwits and Reddit threads show a mix of panic selling and opportunistic dip-buying, but sell-side notes from TipRanks label the stock “high-risk pending governance clarity.” The plunge puts Fermi’s year-to-date gains underwater and drags the small nuclear-reactor ETF space with it. Options markets priced in another 15% swing either direction within the week, implying traders expect more news soon .

Fermi’s stumble lands at a delicate moment for the entire “AI needs nukes” narrative. Microsoft, Google and Amazon have all signed letters of intent with similar micro-reactor startups; any whiff of execution risk at a poster-child firm could chill venture funding across the sector. As one analyst told Bloomberg, “If the team that raised the most SPAC cash can’t stick together, investors will ask who can?” The timing also precedes a key NRC ruling on SMR siting later this quarter that Fermi had lobbied for aggressively .

The board has launched a formal CEO search and promises an update within 30 days. Insiders say the short list includes former Energy Department officials and at least one ex-Tesla energy executive. Meanwhile, COO Ortiz must keep the Texas site on schedule, reassure anchor customers rumored to include OpenAI and Oracle, and prevent further staff departures. If the next permanent leader isn’t named before the Q2 earnings call, expect another leg down in the stock and possible re-valuation of the entire nuclear-AI startup cohort .