CEO and co-founder of Helion Energy, leading the pursuit of commercial D‑³He fusion via field‑reversed configuration plasmas
David Meade co-founded Helion Energy in 2013 and has served as its chief executive officer, guiding the Everett, Washington-based company through a series of increasingly powerful prototype fusion devices. Under his leadership Helion has built and operated seven successive field-reversed configuration (FRC) machines, each designed to validate a step on the path toward a commercially viable deuterium–helium-3 (D–3He) fusion power plant.
Helion’s concept accelerates two FRC plasmoids to roughly one million miles per hour and collides them inside a central compression chamber. The merged plasma is then further compressed by powerful magnetic fields until fusion conditions are reached. Unlike most mainline fusion concepts that rely on deuterium–tritium fuel, Helion targets the D–3He reaction, which produces energetic charged particles rather than high-energy neutrons. This choice simplifies shielding, reduces activation of structural materials, and—critically—opens a path to direct energy conversion, in which the expanding plasma does work against the magnetic field and drives current directly into a circuit.1
Helion’s seventh prototype, Polaris, is designed to demonstrate net electricity from fusion. In 2023 the company announced a power-purchase agreement with Microsoft, the first such commercial commitment in the fusion industry, targeting delivery of at least 50 megawatts of fusion-generated electricity. The agreement signaled a new level of corporate confidence in private fusion and placed significant public accountability on Meade and his team to deliver on schedule.2
Under Meade’s leadership Helion has raised over $600 million in private capital, including a $500 million Series E round in 2021 led by Sam Altman, who also serves as the company’s chairman. The funding has supported construction of a dedicated manufacturing campus, development of custom high-temperature superconducting magnets, and scaling of pulsed-power systems capable of delivering the enormous currents required for FRC compression.3
Meade studied at Stanford University and brings an engineering-driven management philosophy to Helion. He has emphasized rapid prototyping and iterative hardware testing over extended theoretical study, a cadence reflected in the company’s progression through seven distinct machines in roughly a decade. His public communications stress that each prototype is designed to answer a specific set of physics and engineering questions, with lessons feeding directly into the next build.4
Helion’s pursuit of D–3He fusion via pulsed FRC compression occupies a distinctive niche in the private fusion landscape. If Polaris achieves its targets, the company—and Meade personally—will have demonstrated one of the most unconventional paths to commercial fusion power.