Fermi Subpoenaed For Project Matador, Former Management Records

A federal court is seeking unspecified records over a planned 17-gigawatt data center campus from an upstart Texas development firm with political ties to a former governor and President Donald Trump.

Fermi America Project Matador President Donald J. Trump Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus Rick Perry
A rendering of the data center campus Fermi is planning in Carson County, Texas

Fermi announced in its quarterly report issued this week that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York requested certain documents related to its Project Matador data center campus development in the Texas Panhandle. The court is also seeking documents regarding “certain former members of management,” according to the quarterly report.

The Securities and Exchange Commission also issued a “voluntary production” request for documents over similar issues, Fermi said in the filing. The company said it was cooperating with both agencies in their requests, but it didn’t detail which issues the parties were seeking documents on. 

“Each request is broad in scope, and neither contains any allegations of wrongdoing,” Fermi said in the filing. 

Fermi didn’t respond to an email seeking comment as of press time.

The subpoena is the latest in a string of challenges and controversies surrounding Fermi, the company that was co-founded by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. He also served as the secretary of energy during Trump’s first presidential term.

The campus would hold more than 18M SF of data centers utilizing nuclear, gas and solar power plants that would generate enough electricity to power at least 15 states at their peak, Politico reported

Earlier this month, the company announced it secured a 15-year lease with artificial intelligence cloud provider TensorWave that would generate $6.5B in revenue, used to help support AMD graphics processing units that operate and train AI.

Fermi America launched in June 2025 and issued an initial public offering less than six months later, raising more than $682M. When Fermi issued the IPO, it said the first million square feet of data center space would be operational that month, but those plans never materialized.

In April of this year, Fermi ousted CEO and co-founder Toby Neugebauer, a move he sued over. Neugebauer said only the company's shareholders can dismiss a director under Texas law and Fermi bylaws, and he accused Fermi's board of misleading investors and the public about his exit from management.

Fermi lost $150M in construction funding in December after an unnamed tenant pulled out of the project. The megaproject developer was subsequently forced to issue warnings about its continued operation.

In its Q2 report, Fermi tallied just over $62K cash on hand and another nearly $30K of restricted cash. Fermi also issued $431K in convertible senior notes that mature in 2031.

“When measured against forecasted disbursements under the Company’s current operating plan, these resources are not sufficient to satisfy the Company’s financial obligations as they become due within one year after the date these unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements are issued,” Fermi said in the earnings report. 

Fermi is also facing a shareholder class-action lawsuit about allegedly misleading statements of tenant interest in Project Matador, according to cryptocurrency news site CryptoBriefing.

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