There may be another painful sign that irrational exuberance exists in our newest Gold Rush, the creation of energy and infrastructure of the AI Revolution. In warp-speed fashion, after President Trump won the 2024 election, a new energy company was founded by former Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and Toby Neugebauer, an equity guy. In just 10 short months, these two founders founded Fermi Inc. and led a successful NASDAQ IPO, valuing the company at about $13 billion.
The primary goal of the new corporation is to build an 11-gigawatt HyperGrid power and AI datacenter in Amarillo, Texas. The primary focus of Fermi Inc. was called Project Matador, which included building and operating the Donald J. Trump Generating Plant. Everyone from Wall Street to the White House was on board.
The share price for Fermi Inc. opened at $32.53 on October 1, 2025. The share price on December 12, 2025, was $10.09. What happened?
The biggest problem is that Fermi has never seen a dime of revenue, and it lost its first and only customer. This undisclosed customer had signed a letter of intent for a $150 million investment, with an expected annual revenue stream of one billion, but backed out.
This is what my financial analyst at perplexity.ai tells me about the potential success for Project Matador:
- Fermi is in a classic high‑risk, high‑capital development phase: large project ambitions and sizable equity value, but negligible current revenue, negative earnings, and dependence on future contracts and financing.
- The loss of a major future‑revenue contract, alongside negative EBITDA and incomplete profitability metrics, suggests a financially fragile condition that is highly sensitive to project execution, customer concentration, capital markets, and regulatory outcomes.
AI has great potential and will change the world in many dramatic ways. However, like the Dot.Com bubble around 2000 and the housing bubble in 2008, it looks like there is a lot of “stupid” money following AI. Michael Burry, the famous short-seller who predicted the 2008 crash, is actively sorting AI companies that are becoming severely overvalued.
We’ve all seen this rodeo before, and it looks like former Texas Governor Perry should hold on to his pickup truck a while longer. He might not be able to afford that Rolls-Royce he’s had his eye on.
Update: I forgot to mention the source of power for the initial construction of the Donald J. Trump Generating Plant. Naturally, it will be powered by gas. Governor Perry promises nuclear, solar, and wind for the future, but as long as there is natural gas in the ground… It’s pump, baby, pump.
Rick Perry and Donald Trump have several things in common. They are both somewhat delusional, greedy, and were formerly Democrats. Both are 75+ years of age but still very self centered, with no real regard for everyone else, just financial profit for themselves. This venture was going to cost the residents of the Texas Panhandle a lot of groundwater, so I’m glad to hear it has been put on hold for now. Perry has always pushed for the use of natural gas, but why not use electric power produced by wind and solar so available in the panhandle, because he wants to make money going and coming. “Not so fast” as Lee Corso would say!