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About
David Kirtley is co-founder and CEO of Helion, the fusion company he started in Washington state in 2013 with Chris Pihl, John Slough, and George Votroubek. A University of Michigan-trained aerospace engineer, he moved from space-propulsion work at MSNW into commercial fusion. Under his leadership, Helion's seventh prototype, Polaris, became the first privately developed fusion machine to demonstrate measurable deuterium-tritium fusion and reached plasma temperatures above 150 million degrees Celsius. Helion is building its first commercial plant, Orion, to supply Microsoft, and its September 2026 close expanded a Series G round to $500 million, bringing total investment to about $1.5 billion.
Previous roles
- MSNW (plasma physics research)
Notable work
- Pulsed magneto-inertial fusion
- Field-reversed configuration plasma
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